Bad news for Yelp and good news for nightlife lovers. When you want to go out, it doesn’t necessarily have to be to an event. So to help you discover bars, restaurants, and nearby attractions, Facebook
is rebranding its standalone Events app as “Facebook Local”. Launching in the U.S. today on iOS and Android, Facebook Local combines events and permanent places to a single search engine powered by Facebook’s 70 million business pages plus reviews and friends’ checkins.
Facebook Local product manager Aditya Koolwal tells me the goal was to “Make it a lot easier to do certain kind of looks ups that are very common when making plans with friends.” Easier is key, considering Facebook Events never made it above #139 on the social networking app charts and SensorTower estimates it only got 100,000 downloads.
For now, he tells me Facebook Local won’t feature ads from businesses and events trying to stand out, but says “we’ll think about advertising way further down the line.”
Back inside Facebook’s main app, the Nearby feature that’s buried in the More tab is getting rebranded as “Local” too. But there, it’s still separate from Facebook Events. While Koolwal says he hasn’t thought about it, the Facebook Local app could one day be a good home for Facebook’s Nearby Friends, which shows real-time locations of your friends similar to Snapchat’s Snap Map. Facebook’s recently launched Order Food feature could also be a smart addition if you and friends decide leaving the house is too much work.
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