Facebook reportedly working on merging Events and Local

According to a tweet from Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane), Facebook are planning on combining the best of Facebook Events and Facebook Local in one place.

Facebook is working on a unified UI for Events and Local pic.twitter.com/rUQJVYVSEa

— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) April 30, 2019

The way Events and Local currently works is that Events has native support on Facebook, regardless of whether you’re accessing Facebook through a browser or an app, while Facebook Local is a standalone app.

The Local app is basically an amalgamation of Events, Yelp, and FourSquare, but with things that are occurring specifically in your nearby area. Confusingly, the Local app used to be the Events app, which is a different thing to Facebook Events.

The way Local works is that it allows you to browse things such as bars and restaurants that are local to you, peruse reviews, search for nearby businesses, and see what your friends are up to. There’s even guides for What’s Happening in your area.

The app synchronises with your Facebook account and takes all the necessary information from there, but also requires the use of location services to function properly.

If, like me, you live in the middle of nowhere where there’s nothing good to see or visit, the Local app really isn’t that helpful. It also tends to be a bit wrong at times and may recommend you things that are a bit more out the way than local.

Facebook Events, however, is a lot more broad. You can see Events that your friends are attending, Events that you may be interested in based on your history, and recently announced events. It also allows you to look for nearby films and allows you to search by category (e.g. comedy, crafts, drinks).

While the Local app does have its own Events section, it’s just for – you guessed it! – local events. The merging of the two would let you keep an eye on things both near and far, all in one convenient place.

It’s currently not clear as to whether this unified UI would be an entirely new app, added into the Local app, or added into the native Facebook app.

Source: Jane Manchun Wong on Twitter.