On April 18, F8, a Facebook event for developers and partners, started. About the most important announcements of his introductory presentation – in our material.
We have identified four main innovations related to development: Camera Effects, new analytics, the second version of Messenger (it is no longer a messenger, but a platform), as well as the updated Instant Games.
Camera Effects
At the end of March, Facebook launched the Camera feature in the mobile app. The latter allows you to apply effects to your video selfies. The augmented reality platform Camera Effects announced today is a set of tools for developers to create effects: Frame Studio for frames, AR Studio for complex interactive effects that react to the position of the face.
Omni-channel, automatic reports and custom dashboards in analytics
Facebook has announced the introduction of deeper (universal) analytics in the social network. Now it will be possible to evaluate the user’s interaction with your page against the background of his other actions.
The social network in its blog gives the following example: a user commented on your post about a product. You can then track whether the user went to look at the online store for the product, bought it or not, and so on.
In addition, Facebook has introduced the Automated insights service, which, based on machine learning and artificial intelligence, will show users the most interesting insights according to available data.
Plus, what was really missing for everyone – finally, the boards with data in Facebook analytics can be customized for themselves.
Messenger Platform 2.0
One of the central announcements is, of course, Messenger Platform 2.0.
It will be possible to search for bots, places and businesses inside the communication platform. In fact, a mini-store with various pages grouped by subject.
In addition, developers have the opportunity to make so-called Chat Extensions. In fact, these are extensions for chat. For example, if you want (as in VK) to throw music to a friend, you can now do it thanks to the Spotify extension. You can also listen to it in the chat.
Business organizations will be able to implement smart bots on Facebook that will respond to basic customer requests.
New features of Instant Games
A game panel has appeared in Facebook Messenger itself. Now it will not be necessary to go to the chat to play. Added new functionality to the game API. For example, there is the possibility of sharing and direct PvP. Facebook has also introduced gaming bots.
Gameroom has not bypassed the social network either. Facebook is currently preparing a closed beta SDK for her, which will allow porting games created on Unreal Engine, cocos2d and more to the platform.
By the way, the social network also introduced the Facebook Spaces VR platform, which will allow owners of virtual reality headsets to communicate and interact with each other (including playing).
It is not yet known when all the announcements described will take effect.
Source: Facebook