Facebook has redesigned its Events feature, which now allows users to view friends’ upcoming birthdays, event invites and even suggested events on a calendar – instead of traditional list format.
The calendar view for Events was originally developed at Facebook’s hackathons. “A couple of us felt there should be a better way for people to see their friends’ birthdays a few days in advance and make plans for the weekend. So we built it,” Bob Baldwin, the Facebook software engineer behind the project said in a blog post on the site.
“Before a recent hackathon, a few of us created a Facebook group called ‘Social Calendar Dreamers’ to spark discussion around making Events more visual,” wrote Baldwin. “At the next hackathon, engineers from the events, photos, messages and other teams hacked through the night to build a better way to view events. By 6 a.m., we had a prototype that worked.”
The new view makes it easier for users to keep an eye on upcoming birthdays and events. It also has suggested events, which are mainly added on the basis of factors such as the pages that users like, places they have checked in to, and the apps frequently used by them.
The updated Facebook Events app is gradually rolling out to all users. To get to the calendar view, click on “Calendar” on the top left of your Events dashboard. Baldwin in the blog post also lauded the company’s hackathons project. “It’s pretty cool that a night of hanging out and hacking on an idea can turn into something that my friends and everyone else on Facebook can use.”
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