Facebook on Tuesday hosted its this year’s developer conference in San Jose. The Day 1 of the conference saw 4,000 people attend the event where Mark Zuckerberg with other key employees from Facebook concentrated a lot to implement Augmented Reality into smartphone cameras, some new features in Messenger and a lot more. Here is everything that happened on the Day One of Facebook’s this year’s developer’s conference.
Camera Effects Platform
Facebook today announced that it will now give the wand to various artists and developers to create various filters ranging from a simple photo frame to interactive effects making use of the latest advancements in AR (Augmented Reality) technologies. This platform includes two products, one being the Frames Studio which is an online creative editor while the other one is the AR Studio which is currently open for beta applications and can be used to create masks, scripted effects, animated frames and other AR technologies.
Facebook Spaces
With Facebook Spaces, the social network giant is extending the limits of Virtual Reality. Facebook Spaces is a new VR App through which you can interact with your friends and family in a virtual environment no matter where they live. The app has been launched in beta for Oculus Rift, as of now.
An extract from the press release reads – “With Facebook Spaces, you can view Facebook content with friends in VR, including 360 videos and photos that can transport you to new places. You can draw in the air with a virtual marker to create anything you can dream up, from a decorative hat to a handmade tic-tac-toe board.”
Messenger
Another big announcement which Facebook made on Day 1 of its this year’s developer conference is related to Messenger. Facebook Messenger now has a separate Discover tab that allows people to find the bot for Messenger they’re looking for in an intuitive and thoughtful way, right from the home screen in Messenger. Further, Chat Extensions allows multiple people to chat with the same business at the same time.
The recently launched Messenger’s AI assistant can now order food for you through delivery.com and the company also claims to have bumped up the gaming platform through game bots. Smart Replies will help Facebook Pages to respond most FAQs in a more convenient way while Hand-over Protocol is a new way for businesses to work with multiple developers for different experiences on Messenger.
Place Graph
Beside AR and Messenger, Facebook also launched ‘Places Graph’ to provide free access to data on more than 140 million places around the world. These places include everything from public spaces and parks to restaurants, stores and other local businesses.
Further, the social network giant also confirmed that about 14,000 organisations are using Workplace on every continent including Antarctica.
Developer Circles
Facebook also announced a new program for developers named ‘Developer Circles’ where local developers can come together and share their knowledge amongst others through forums. Apart from this, Developer Circles are forums to collaborate, build new ideas and learn about the latest technologies from Facebook and other industry leaders.
Facebook Analytics
Facebook has also added new features to Facebook Analytics to help you understand and optimise your complete customer journey through your app and website. The new Automated Insights tool uses advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence to bring valuable insights directly to you such as changes in purchases for a new version of your app.
Identity
It’s easier to now Login from both Facebook and Messenger and connects with the same person. In other words, the new API allows you to map between a Facebook Login ID and a Messenger ID, so you can serve your customers smoothly across both experiences. Also, the new solutions help you maintain a relationship with your customers to grow beyond the initial touchpoint of sign-in
Games
Lastly, Facebook also introduced new gameplay features to give developers more freedom on the experience they nourish out of a game. For instance, Developers can customise their own start and end screens and integrate new APIs that can help drive share & connected gameplay