Facebook Just Blew Our Minds At F8!!!

Facebook's Annual Developer Conference, F8 started yesterday, 12th April, 2016. The 2 day event opened, in Fort Masoan Center, San Fransisco, California, while F8 Meetups held simultaneously in several locations around the globe to allow developers who were unable to attend the conference in person to participate in the event. F8 Meetup this year includes a live video streaming session followed by a networking session.

This years event features over 40 sessions along with products announcements, interactive demos and the opportunity to get one-on-one help from the Facebook team. Facebook introduced new products, tools, interactive demos and speakers to help developers build, grow and monetize their apps.

Mark Zuckerberg opened the conference with a speech where he referred to the anti-immigration rhetoric in the 2016 US presidential debate, Zuckerberg said, "I'm starting to see people and nations turning inward against this idea of a connected world. I hear fearful voices talking about building walls...in some countries their event cutting out the internet.... It takes courage to chose hope over fear." He went on to say, "Instead of building walls we can help build bridges. Instead of dividing people we can connect people. We do it one person at a time, one connection at a time. That's why I think the work we're doing together is more important than it has ever been before."

Reveiling the companies 10 year roadmap, he introduced Bots which would serve as robotic customer service representatives for news, weather and retails companies, he spoke about using VR to put grandparents inside baby videos. He also illustrated the carbon fiber tube from Facebook's Aquila Pilotless Plane that will beam internet down to parts of the developing world. He also talked about the many other new features and impressive projects that Facebook has embarked upon and is rolling out in 2016, including Facebook Free Basics, Oculus Rift, Facebook 360, Facebook Start, Live Video etc.

Participants at the event came away feeling mindblown by the level of innovation and potential that Facebook has unleashed with its various new features, demos and tools. One partiipant of the Meetup session in Lagos posted on FB, "Im streaming #F82016 live right now and Mark Zuckerberg and the Facebook team are just making my mind go Boom Boom Boom! You need to watch it!"

Touted as Facebooks most important event, F8 is an annual gathering of Facebooks developer community where developers get to learn about new integrations, open source technologies and the latest immersive experiences from Facebook. The F8 Meetup is a networking event for Facebook developers to participate in the event from other parts of the world. F8 Meetup will hold in 30 locations across the globe, Lagos, Singapore, New Delhi, New York, Tokyo, Berlin developers Conference was live streamed to participants.

Interested developers can register online access to F8 and watch the event from opening keynote to closing session, and join the F8 Online Experience event for exclusive content and updates in the months leading up to F8 on https://www.fbf8.com.

Resources - live stream from fbf8.com, tweets from twitter.com, techcrunch.com, cnn.com

#FaceBook #F8 #MarkZuckerberg #News