FB adds India-specific options, shows how to build communities

FB adds India-specific options, shows how to build communities

MUMBAI: Facebook hosted an interactive product showcase for Facebook community to experience in Mumbai. Facebook: A place to connect, showcased brings to life Facebook's mission, shared across our family of products and apps, which is to make the world more open and connected.

The event centered around three subjects: Me, My Community and My World. The featured products included Facebook Live, Facebook Lite, 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 Center, Parents Portal, Bullying Prevention Hub and Suicide Prevention tools.

The event served as an opportunity for the teams to listen and receive feedback from the community as they worked to ensure everyone's Facebook experiences is great, regardless of where they connect. Facebook is building better experiences to work on all connections, devices, and communities.

Products such as Facebook Lite, which makes it easier for people to access Facebook on older Android devices or slower connections, counts India as one of the top (client) countries. Now, conversations on FB Lite can be enhanced through reactions including “Love”, “Haha”, “Wow”, “Sad” and “Angry.”

Since the global rollout of Facebook Reactions in 2016, there have been 300 billion reactions on Facebook posts. The most popular reaction is Love, making up more than half of all of reactions.

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 have 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.

"India is a very important country to Facebook, and we're proud to have more than 184 million monthly active people in India who use Facebook to connect with their friends and family, and to build supportive communities online and offline," an FB executive said.

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg 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.

Last month, Facebook rolled out its new camera feature. "We want to make it fast, fun and easy for people to share creative photos and videos with whomever they choose, for however long they choose — and the more we share with each other, the more open and connected our community can be," the executive said.