Facebook's Facebook Events app did not turn into a competitor of Google Calendar that she was ready to become. So the social network relaunches it and redirects it to local search platforms like Yelp and Foursquare.
On Friday, Facebook launched Facebook Local, a reconditioned version of its Events app that aims to help people find things to do and places to go and make Facebook a local searcher.
Through Facebook Local – which is available on iOS and Android – people can search for places, such as restaurants and gyms, as well as events, like music concerts and art festivals. And since people have to log in with their Facebook accounts, the app can take into account the places that a person's friends have liked on Facebook and the events they responded to through the social network.
People can search for places and events by name or category, or they can browse Facebook lists. The app organizes events and locations in categories, such as food, drinks, games, fitness, film, music, religion and health. People can sort these results by relevance, popularity, distance and rank. They can also choose the places that their Facebook friends liked and see which places are open now. The selection of a location will indicate its hours, its address, its ranking on Facebook, the popular keywords that people use to talk about it on Facebook and the photos posted on Facebook, as well as the links to call them, get itineraries via a third-party mapping application, View its Facebook page or visit its website.
Facebook Local allows people to search for nearby places and events, draw them on a map, and list information about specific locations.
When users download the app, they must log in with their Facebook accounts, which allows the local to show which friends have liked a particular place. They are also asked to let Facebook track their locations and decline, and they may define a city as their favorite place for recommendations, regardless of whether they live there.
Although positioned as a local search application, Facebook Local has many vestiges of its former identity. Its Maps tab allows you to list nearby events by default, although users can edit the search query to other categories, such as restaurants. And a calendar tab lists the events that a person responded to via Facebook.
In addition, the home tab of the application is surmounted by a search bar and links to browse the locations by category, but below are the lists Nearby, upcoming events divided into three sections. "For you" lists the events taking place nearby, as well as the events that friends have answered via Facebook. "Events" lists the close events sorted by day in chronological order. And "guides" categorize events by interest, such as arts and culture, causes and fundraisers, games and music.
A Facebook spokesperson did not immediately respond to an email asking if Facebook Local will submit ads. Thus, although the way in which Local will directly contribute to the company's business is unclear, its indirect benefit is more apparent.
Whether or not users choose to let the app track their location, they need to set a location when searching or consulting, which can help Facebook gauge the interests of users in this area. The selection of specific locations is an additional sign of interest, especially if people choose to call a restaurant or get directions to access a store via the app . And even if people do not give local permission to track their locations, they may have already allowed Facebook's main application to do so, which Facebook can use to check if a person who consults a local has ended up visit it in real life. And just as Facebook has allowed brands to retarget people who have responded to their events or visited their brick and mortar sites, the company could possibly add an option to retarget people who have checked their locations in Local.
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About the author
Tim Peterson, Third Door Media's Social Media Reporter, has been covering the digital marketing industry since 2011. He has been reporting for Advertising Age, Adweek and Direct Marketing News. Angeleno, born and raised, graduated from the University of New York, currently lives in Los Angeles.
He broke stories on Snapchat's advertising plans, Jason Kilar's attempt at founding CEO of Hulu, to turn to YouTube and assembling the ad-tech battery of Amazon; analyzed YouTube's programming strategy, Facebook's advertising ambitions and increased blocking of ads; and recorded the largest annual event of the VidCon digital video, the BuzzFeed brand video production process and the Snapchat Discover ads charge six months after its launch. He has also developed tools to monitor the early adoption of live applications by brands, compare search patterns from Yahoo and Google, and review the NFL's YouTube and Facebook video strategies.