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Facebook Branches Out with Messenger, Events, and Notes

Picture 9-3-2015With the evolution of Messenger, Facebook has been doing its best to create standalone experiences that don’t necessarily have to work in tandem with the main social network. We’ve seen how Messenger has been evolving on its own; Facebook has been bringing new features to Messenger themselves and opening the platform up for third-party applications to provide users with even more interesting features. Most recently, it appears that Facebook is aiming to make the experience even more standalone. Since June, users have been able to sign up for Messenger without having active Facebook accounts, separating the app even further from the social network.

The success of Messenger has been very apparent, so it’s no surprise that Facebook is looking into creating standalone applications for other aspects of the social network. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has stated that Facebook Groups has 850 million active users, while Facebook Events has 450 million active users. Facebook has already launched a standalone Groups app, so it stands to reason that there could be an Events app coming in the near future, especially with Zuckerberg mentioning that Facebook Events had hit ‘global scale’ in a recent earnings call.

While Events may be next on the horizon for a standalone app, Facebook is also working on tweaks to the various utilities that will surely remain as part of the social network itself for the time being. Specifically, it seems that Facebook is planning on revamping Facebook Notes, transforming the area into a blogging platform rather than something that looks similar to other Facebook updates. The updates to Facebook Notes have not yet been rolled out to all users, but they show that Facebook is serious about updating every aspect of their interface and staying competitive with other platforms.

What’s Facebook Letting Us Do Now?

Picture 4-16-2015The rate at which Facebook seems to be constantly growing and changing is truly astounding. It seems that rarely a week goes by without a new feature being rolled out by the social network. Over the course of the past couple of months, Facebook has released a number of new and interesting features, as well as separate applications that are intended to perform specific functions. One way that Facebook changed things up recently, for instance, is by allowing people to use Facebook Groups to sell things, in a way similar to Craigslist, but with less anonymity.

Another interesting thing that Facebook can now be used for is serving divorce papers via Facebook messages. In this situation, it’s not exactly a feature that was added by Facebook. It’s actually been a court ruling, which allows people to serve legal paperwork such as divorce papers via Facebook, depending on the circumstances. Whether or not this can be considered legal would have to be decided on a state-by-state basis, but New York has confirmed that it can be done.

Outside of the Facebook platform itself, Facebook has been launching some interesting apps that allow users to perform different functions. Riff is an app that allows friends to create collaborative videos by adding clips together; the videos that are created can be easily shared through Facebook and the contributors will automatically be tagged. Another app that Facebook just launched is called Scrapbook, which is effectively a way for children under the age of thirteen to have a Facebook presence, allowing parents to tag photos of their children. Facebook is currently looking into ways to allow a child’s Scrapbook to be upgraded to an official Facebook page once they turn thirteen.

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