Facebook's new features help connect better, offer support

Facebook is a great place to connect with friends, family and peers. But more than that, it can take the shape of a community where one can help each other and find solutions.

Taking the thought of connecting a step ahead, Facebook on April 28 hosted an event called ‘A place to connect’. Adit Vaidya, Product Manager, Facebook spoke about how their latest features can help people connect with each other in a better way.

Vaidya explained how supportive communities, Facebook groups and the community help could connect like-minded people. Quoting an example of supportive communities, he said how a user created a housewives community called ‘Good sister,’ where married women can share their problems and get solutions from others. They could also share their stories on the community so that everyone knows about experiences of others and share theirs.

Elaborating on groups, Vaidya gave an example of how a teachers’ help group helped about 4.5k teachers solve different doubts. When Chennai was flooded last year, Facebook’s Community helped identify people in crisis and made sure they connected unknown people to help each other. Their safety check feature also helped the user to check if their friends and family in the vicinity are fine.

Apart from that, its camera feature launched last month, is quite an engaging tool for users. The user can take a photo and directly send it to few of their friends or add it to their story.

While that was what Facebook offers, the platform also announced business features on Whatsapp and on Instagram stories.

Facebook also rolled out local camera effects designed for India. In addition to the frames and effects that come standard in the Facebook camera, they've designed several custom effects for India — so people can create and share photos and videos that showcase the expression of ‘Namaste’ as well as capture geo-specific experiences in Delhi, Mumbai, Goa and other places.

When Whatsapp’s Matt Steinfeld was asked on how soon they’re going to begin with their business features in India and globally, he said that there is still time for that to be launched. He said a lot of Indian businesses are already using Whatsapp for business and the launch of those features will further boost it.

Instagram stories too have been doing quite well. Their business tools for Instagram stories will soon be seen used by Indians.

The event offered a lot of immersive experiences and was divided into three themes – Me, My community and My world. Each of the sections offered some fun activities for the media and its partners. One could engage in endless experiences.

The event featured products such as Facebook Live, Full Camera, 360 Photos, Groups, Events, Oculus, Instagram, WhatsApp as well as our suite of safety, and security tools, including Safety Check, Community Help, Safety Centre, Parents Portal, Bullying Prevention Hub and Suicide Prevention tools.

India is an important country for India with over 184 million monthly active users who use Facebook to connect with their friends and family, and to build supportive communities online and offline.

Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO, Facebook recently shared a letter to the community about giving people the power to build a global community. “For the past decade, Facebook has focused on connecting friends and families. With that foundation, our next focus will be developing the social infrastructure for the community -- for supporting us, for keeping us safe, for informing us, for civic engagement, and for inclusion of all that will bring us together as a global community so we can have the most positive impact in the world.”

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