Facebook debuted Facebook Local, a redesigned and a relaunch of its Events app. What it does, is to compete with platforms like Yelp and Foursquare.
Local enables Facebook to help people in finding nearby things to do and places to go, making the social giant a better player in local search. Available on iOS and Android, users can search for places, such as restaurants and gyms, as well as events, like music concerts and art festivals.
Because only Facebook users can use the feature, the app can show places that the person's friends have liked on Facebook and the events they have RSVPed to attend through the social network.
People can also search for locations and events by name or category. Or, they can browse through Facebook’s existing listings.
The app organizes events and locations into categories, such as food, drinks, games, fitness, film, music, religion and health.
People can sort these results by relevance, popularity, distance and rating. They can also select the places that their Facebook friends have liked, and see which places are open at that moment.
Selecting a location will show its hours, address, rating on Facebook, including popular keywords people use when talking about it on Facebook, and pictures of it posted to Facebook.
Users can also call, get directions through third-party app, view its Facebook page or visit its website.
There is a Discover feed which shows top suggestions and what's popular with friends. Then, there is a Calendar tab which shows all Event invites and RSVPs. Users can import their device's calendars to have everything in one place.
Upon logging in, users are asked to let Facebook track their locations, in which they can decline if they want to. They can set a city as their preferred place for recommendations.
Facebook Local is certainly a bad news for the likes of Yelp and Foursquare. With the ability to show places, Facebook Local combines events and permanent places to a single search engine powered by Facebook’s 70 million business pages, including reviews and friends’ check-ins.
According to Facebook, the goal of the standalone app, was to "make it a lot easier to do certain kind of looks ups that are very common when making plans with friends."
So here, Local aims to easiness of use. Facebook always had one huge advantage over many others, and that is seemingly with its sheer amount of users.
Additionally, Facebook's Nearby feature that is buried in the More tab is also rebranded as Local too. But there, it’s still separate from Facebook Events.