Facebook launches standalone Events and Calender app, but is it truly useful?

Facebook hasn’t had much luck with standalone apps for its services, except of-course Messenger. But, the company isnt ready to give up just yet and is now experimenting with another new exclusive app for the Events service on its platform. The app is currently being made available on iOS in the U.S, but will be ported to Android in the coming months.

Facebook believes that events are one of the key elements of the true essense of the platform, and today over 100 million user are using it as their go-to event planner. Thus, the company is giving those dedicated event planners(and attendees) an aptly-named ‘Events from Facebook’ standalone app for organizing and searching parties nearby.

You’ll no longer need to scower all around your news feed(or your friend’s) to look for that perfect concert to attend this weekend. Also, the app allows to sync and pull in your daily plans from the phone’s calendar, which allows you to easily choose events you’re interested in accomodating between your tiring work hours. You can also just take a peek at what’s happening around, maybe you find something that interests you.

As for the functionality of the app, you can call it a robust and beefed up calendar app that’s powered by Facebook. The moment you open the application you’ll be greeted with your schedule and your upcoming events for the current day. Then if you scroll down, you’ll be able to take a peek at an event you’re friends are interested in, recently-announced events by the Pages you like and updates from events you’re already partaking in. And just like on Facebook, you can pick your status for the event, like it, comment and discuss plans on it and even share it from there itself.

Well if that isn’t enough for you and you’re looking for something particular, then you can jump to the search tab. There you’ll first see recommendation cards, nearby event locations and venue details of events happening, based on time, geolocation, interests, and Pages liked. You can instantly tap said tiles to know about events happening today, tomorrow or on the weekend, but you can also use the same to plan ahead of a vacation trip. But, you’re still free to search any events, music festivals, farmer market sales and meetings using the search bar.

And finally, you also have a fully-functional and robust calender application built right into the events apps. And as product manager Aditya Koolwal told TechCrunch, the company initially had some reservations about the inclusion of calender into app, but the testers felt it was a necessity. So, yeah, it’s there now and it is definitely functional. It not only allows you to sync any and all of your calender from your phone in one place but also to keep track of uncoming events and free dates without hiccups — i suppose.

Well, though we have only discussed the usefulness of the events application for extroverts and party-goers, it will also be highly useful for Page managers and businesses who organise events frequently. If Facebook is introducing ways to let them market their events in this app, like they on the main platform, then it’s a win-win for them as well. Though the utilisation of the service is massive, but it is could also help Facebook push video, and livestreaming events to the fore-front.