The changes coming to Facebook
F8 is Facebook’s annual conference for developers working on applications and services for the social networking platform. In this event the company announces the most important changes in the platform’s applications. Facebook and Messenger, according to this year’s announcement, are going to be quite different in the near future.
In his keynote speech, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that “The future is privacy”, arguing that Facebook’s next chapter will be about protecting the privacy of the platform’s users.
Six Principles
The head of Facebook referred to six main principles:
- The ability for a user to communicate without surveillance (private interactions)
- The encryption of data across the entire spectrum of one’s experience on Facebook
- The possibility of deleting data posted by a user (reduced permanence)
- Security, so that all users feel safe and secure
- The possibility of interoperability between the applications that Facebook has, which include, in addition to Facebook itself, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp
- The secure storage of data not interceptable by anyone, including government authorities and Facebook itself.
Mr Zuckerberg pointed out that the implementation of all these changes will take some time.
The first changes to Facebook involve the redesign of the smartphone app and the web version. The News Feed takes a back seat, while more emphasis recieves Groups and Events. The goal is to have more interaction with people the user knows well. To note, the company claims that Groups are one of the most popular Facebook services.
Also, the app is made more simple with the white color now dominating, and there is a new feature called “Meet New Friends”, which takes on the task of helping users make new friends. Facebook will suggest to each user other users that they can make friends with based on common interests they share and some common real-world contact.
Big changes are also coming to Messenger with the mobile app being significantly smaller in size and much faster in terms of launch time. The new Messenger is expected to be ready in the fall along with versions for Mac and Windows, while the new Facebook app will gradually start to be available to users around the world.
In addition, WhatsApp is getting more security, and as for Instagram, it is getting new features that result in users making posts that don’t necessarily have to include a photo but are other types of content.
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Author: PC-GR
The World of Technology
