The social giant Facebook is already occupying much of many people's online activities. If that isn't enough, Facebook is rolling out a feature which allows users to order food directly from its website and app.
To use the feature, users can go to the main navigation menu and scroll all the way down to 'Order Food' where they can simply type their specific location or general area. And then they can scroll to a selection of restaurants.
From the restaurant list, users can either go to each place's Facebook Page and order there, or select 'Start Order'. The latter opens a simple interface where users can start making their orders. Users can select the items they want to order on the restaurant's menu, then they select a tip, and pay for it within the app.
The entire process - from navigation, selecting restaurants, browsing the menu, ordering food and checking out - is done inside Facebook.
The attempt began in October 2016 when Facebook said that it would allow its users to connect to restaurants for ordering food under 'Start Order' option. Partnering with two U.S.-based food delivery: Delivery.com and Slice, the social giant plays the role of an aggregator for them.
Initially, the service is only for selected users in the U.S..
Many countries in the world have their own food delivery services. From Zomato, FoodPanda, Fassos, Swiggy, to even Uber, Go-Jek and many others. Facebook here wants to be the aggregator for the existing services in the market, not as a competitor.
But its broader goal encompasses Facebook in doing its best to create an ecosystem where online activities reside.
The social media has been duplicating the functionality of other sites with offerings like weather, discover people, city guides, town hall (displaying government information), online jobs board, fundraisers and games. Simply put, Facebook is doing everything it can to keep its users from being distracted and leave its platform to do something else online.
The more features Facebook has, the more people will stick around and spend more time on the platform. The more users and the more active its users are, the more they will engage with ads. And this means more revenue for the social giant.