Everything You Need To Know About Facebook's F8 Conference And Why You Should Be Excited About It

Facebook has always been ahead of the curve. Ever since they went global with their product, it has only been innovating, working towards new ideas and projects that help them expand their business by reaching out to more people, making it relevant and worth their time. Knowing how popular the social networking site was becoming, businesses started migrating to social media. They would now be connecting with their consumers on a very personal level.

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What is Facebook F8?

In 2007, Facebook held the first ever F8, a conference intended particularly for developers and entrepreneurs who build their products and services around the hugely popular website in San Francisco, California, USA. It's usually an annual, two-day-long event that starts with a keynote speech by founder Mark Zuckerberg followed by a number of other sessions discussing specific topics, new features, and other announcements. This year's event scheduled to be held on the 12th and the 13th of April will focus on new open-source technologies for third-party developers, new integrations, and innovations. More than 40 sessions are lined up for this year's F8 including product announcements, enhancements, interactive demos and a chance for developers and business owners to get one-on-one help from the Facebook team.

You can watch it live here right now

What excites us about F8 this year

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Chatbots

We are sure you're familiar with the often agonising 1-800 helpline numbers. Even though it has evolved a lot over the years, these helpline numbers often end up being a bane for both, the customer and business owners. Not only are they a pain for the ones looking for the solution to a very specific problem, but most startups also don't have the required resources to build a competent enough helpline number.

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With chatbots, Facebook will be looking to bridge this gap. They will be providing developers with the API (Application Program Interface) tools to build their own full-customisable chatbots and Live Chat web-plugins for their business clients. Facebook already has an inventory of approved marketing partners. It'll help businesses with ads, content, measurement and community management. According to Techcrunch, Facebook is yet to formalise a specific Messenger partner program but that is expected to come later. These chatbots will help businesses build automated response systems to interact with potential customers, cutting down on critical time we waste on the internet finding someone who could help solve a problem. With chatbots, help would be just a click away.

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Major improvements to the Facebook Messenger

Facebook takes pride in the fact that they now have a base of 900 million active monthly users. Getting inspired from one of the key features of Snapchat, the messenger now allows users to get in touch and start conversations with other users via a custom QR code. Sharing personal information like your phone wouldn't be necessary anymore. You don't even need to be friends on Facebook.

Adding to that, Facebook is trying to replicate the now-obsolete Yellow Pages by providing new messenger usernames and links for businesses and individuals, making it easier for us to find people and businesses online. Streamlining as many things as possible, their goal is to make phone numbers, phone calls, even some apps on the phone obsolete by replacing them with messenger conversations. A fantastic proposition, especially for people like me, who hate having conversations with service people over the phone. Not so much for those who don't like the platform, though. With them trying to take over every form of communication, it'll be even harder to avoid the platform in the future.

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Facebook Live

Real-time video apps like Periscope, YouTube and Snapchat will be facing stiff competition from Facebook as it tries to up its game by adding new features to Facebook Live, encouraging users to create more live content and interact with others.

Facebook Live didn't quite get the response Facebook expected when it first launched. Largely because there were similar apps doing the same thing, and doing it well at that. Which is why a complete overhaul of the video service is on the cards. It would soon have a dedicated tab located in the middle of the mobile app to be used to find video broadcasts done by friends or the pages you follow, and of course, to broadcast live.

Expected to launch in the coming weeks, Facebook will hope to make it the new way people communicate, encouraging users to connect and share their moments in their private groups, communities or pages of common interest. They are also planning to add the same set of reactions that they recently launched for Facebook. These animated reactions would appear on the screens in real-time before fading away. According to Facebook, they are already noticing a massive spike in the number of comments on a live video as opposed to a normal Facebook video and hope this new feature will further help with engagements.

Exciting times for a tech buff!

Facebook F8 will be held on the 12th and 13th April 2016 from 7:30 pm until midnight. You could sign up to watch the conference live right here.

With inputs from Techcrunch, CIO, Wikipedia, Venture Beat and fbf8.