Michal Marek At the F8 conference, Facebook did not forget to show off the statistics showing how successful its two communication services are - Messenger and WhatsApp.
It is interesting that these two products, which are difficult to find rivals in the field of communication applications, clearly beat even classic SMS text messages. Messenger and WhatsApp together transmit around 60 billion messages per day. At the same time, only 20 billion SMS are sent per day.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg also said that Messenger has grown by another 200 million users compared to last year, and now has an incredible 900 million monthly users. Messenger is thus already catching up with WhatsApp, which in February conquered the goal of one billion active users.
These respectable numbers were heard as part of the performance platform for chatbots, thanks to which Facebook wants to make Messenger the primary communication channel for contact between companies and their customers. WhatsApp will not bring chatbots for now. However, it was certainly not the only news that Facebook presented during F8.
360-degree camera, live video and Account Kit
There is no doubt that Facebook is taking virtual reality seriously. Now comes further proof in the form of a special 360-degree "Surrond 360" sensing system. It boasts seventeen 4-megapixel lenses that are capable of capturing 8K spatial video for virtual reality.
Surround 360 is a system so sophisticated that it requires essentially no post-production intervention. In short, it is a full-fledged device for creating virtual reality. However, the fact is that this is not a toy for everyone. This 3D camera will cost 30 dollars (over 000 crowns) at launch.
Back to live video with Facebook again let go fully just last week. But Zuckerberg's company is already showing that it wants to play the first violin in this area. The ability to record and view live video will be available virtually anywhere in the Facebook environment, both on the web and in apps. The live video gets a prominent position directly in the newsfeed, and also reaches groups and events.
But that's not all, APIs provided to developers will get live video beyond Facebook products themselves, so it will be possible to stream to Facebook from other apps as well.
A very interesting novelty is also the simple Account Kit tool, thanks to which application developers have the opportunity to offer users registration and login to their service even easier than ever before.
It is already possible to sign up for a wide range of services via Facebook. Thanks to this, the user saves himself the time-consuming filling in of all possible personal data and instead just logs in to Facebook, from where the service retrieves the necessary information.
Thanks to a new feature called Account Kit, filling in the Facebook login name and password will no longer be required, and it will only be sufficient to enter the phone number associated with the user's Facebook account. Subsequently, the user simply enters the confirmation code that will be sent to him via SMS, and that's it.
But still shit.