What Every Blogger Needs To Know About The Facebook F8 Conference
Disclaimer: This article will be updated with more information from the conference as it becomes available.
Other than being a button on your keyboard, F8 is also known as one of the most important tech events of the year. It’s Facebook’s annual conference, where the social media giant showcases the latest new ideas and trends regarding their apps and Facebook itself. It’s a must-see for everyone interested in technology, and every year Facebook finds a way to impress us with something new. This year was, of course, not different.
Since its inception 10 years ago, Facebook has managed to become a part of everyday life of millions of people. It’s hard to put the sheer size and importance of the social media giant in perspective, but it’s safe to say that Facebook is here to stay as an important part of our lives. With acquisitions ranging from Instagram to MSQRD, there’s a good chance that you use at least a few apps owned by Facebook in your everyday life. But the one app you certainly use is Facebook Messenger.
The Star of The Show – Messenger
The first day of this year’s F8 has been absolutely dominated by Facebook Messenger. Facebook clearly wants to improve its insanely popular messaging app in a variety of ways and change the way we use messaging apps forever. The first way Messenger will change that are bots. Chat bots, to be more specific.
Chat bots are simply “robots that live inside Messenger”, at least I like to think of them as such. They will be widely available very soon, and their aim is to make your messaging more simple. They will be mostly used by businesses, of course, to bridge the gap between a customer and the company. Bots will be able to communicate with users with text, just like you would do with a real person. Other than that, you’ll be able to ask the bots different questions, like “can I book a room”, and the bot will answer you with the hyperlink of the reservation site, for example.
The great thing about this is that you can have a chat with a large company just like you would with your friends. As the bots get more and more advanced, they will be able to answer a variety of questions and respond to your inquiries with more details, like Siri does for iPhone.
The announcement of bots comes just days after Facebook announced the launch of Messenger links, which we’ve written about. In short, combining these two things will make your experience of chatting with brands a lot different than it is right now.
Facebook uses business page username and a premium .ME domain – M.ME to create a unique and branded short link (m.me/username) that, when clicked, opens the conversation with the business. So, by typing M.ME/username, you can send a message to any brand you like and get an immediate answer because there’s no need for a person to answer your question if there are bots involved. The experience will be extremely customer-oriented, user-friendly and very personal!
VR is Here, And Facebook Is On It
Considering that Facebook bought Oculus in 2014, there’s no denying that the tech giant is interested in VR. That’s not at all surprising, considering that more and more companies are trying to get into the VR business as soon as possible.
Recent launches of both the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive have shown us that the market for these products exists and removed every ounce of doubt that VR is just a fad that will go away soon. Considering Facebook’s recent push into the video sphere, where it intends to give Google a run for its money, by having people record more and more videos and posting them on Facebook, the news of a hardware made just for that are both expected and surprising at the same time.
Of course, if you want to record 360-degree videos, you need a camera. Well, Facebook has you covered with that also.
At this year’s F8, Facebook announced its very own 360-degree camera, called Facebook Surround 360. Using a 17-camera array, and looking like something out of a science fiction movie, we’re sure that the camera will attract a glance or two once it’s released. The camera itself uses 14 cameras in a circular pattern, with one camera on the top and two at the bottom. It also has integrated software and will be entirely open-source. Of course, you’ll have to buy all of the materials which will probably cost around $30,000.
That’s not too bad, considering the prices in the market of 360-degree and VR cameras are still pretty high, and also considering that you do get a certain level of customization because it’s open-source. You’ll have to wait until summer to get the designs, though, but then you’ll be able to shoot 8K 360-degree videos as you please.
Facebook For Drones
Mark Zuckerberg took to the sky at the F8 conference, to demonstrate the newest in Facebook live streaming. Well, not literally, but he did use a drone to stream video directly to Facebook, and that’s pretty cool too. With the release of a new API, Facebook will let third-party apps build Facebook streaming possibilities right into their own apps. Also, you’ll be able to stream from any device.
Up until now, you could only stream video by using a smartphone, and that was especially tricky in some situations, like if you wanted to hook up your stream to a drone. You needed to somehow manage to get the drone to carry your phone with it, a feat that always caused a great deal of worry and anxiety for everyone, considering that the drone can crash in a second if you’re not focused on it. This way, the drone can record using its own camera, and not your precious new phone.
Facebook is getting pretty serious with its Live efforts, even changing the algorithm for those posts so more people see them, and notifying every person who likes a page that said page is hosting a live video. It brought huge amounts of views to those videos, and Facebook has no intention of stopping, with the latest announcement being just another step into the Facebook Live direction.
There’s Something For Everyone
And that “everyone” includes all publishers. Facebook’s Instant Articles are now available to any and all publishers that want to try them out. To refresh your memory, Instant Articles are all articles with a small lightning sign included on the article photo on Facebook. They are much faster to open on all mobile devices, and the ads you’ll be seeing in those articles will be oriented more towards you.
The thing is that these possibilities were reserved only for a select few sites, to try out. But now that’s all about to change, as the general public can finally access this new cool Facebook feature. The publishers will certainly be drawn to Instant Articles by the data that shows that these articles get 20% more clicks, for example. So if you’re a publisher, you should consider this alternative to boost your profit and give your audience faster access to your articles.
Day 2 : VR Selfies !
Day two of the Facebook’s F8 conference was reserved for the projects and announcements that are a little more “down the line”. That doesn’t mean that we haven’t seen any great ideas that will be available soon, it just means that these technologies have their share of development to go through before they reach us, the consumers.
The most impressive tech announced at F8’s second day is definitely the demo of its ToyBox virtual reality software. We were aware that Facebook is going strong with VR, but they surprised us yet again with one of the most wonderfully weird and advanced promo videos we’ve seen in a while. To make everything clear in two words : VR selfies.
That’s right. Facebook will soon allow you to teleport yourself to a remote location and take a photo of yourself next to Big Ben, or Grand Canyon. You will be represented by a blue guy that looks somewhat like you, but cartoonish, and you will be able to look around and take photos, just like you could do if you were actually there. It’s hard to comprehend the amount of work that needs to be done for this to work, and the demo even included a selfie stick that had a virtual mirror inside, so you can take selfies with the selfie stick while being in a simulation of somewhere else. Crazy. Even crazier, you can then take the photo with your hands and throw it into a weird container, that automatically posts it to your timeline.
The future is here, people. And it’s really realistic.
