Create spontaneous events quickly or create more formal events intricately, it's up to you
Over the weekend, Facebook
announced some small changes to the site that make it as simple as a couple clicks to create spontaneous events worth inviting friends to.
"Catching a movie, meeting a friend for dinner or taking an impromptu day trip" are all good reasons to use the new feature, which is accessible on the right-hand column of the home page. As with status updates, the user simply types in the "What are you planning?" text box, triggering a form to open up where the user can elaborate on the time and place of the event, as well as send out invitations to friends.
For "more formal events or those you're planning further in advance," Facebook now directs users to the left-hand column where one simply clicks "+Create an Event" and fills out the fields with information about the event.
Making event pages even more interactive, Facebook allows to users post messages, photos, videos, and links on the event's wall. Public events are open to everyone to attend and private events are only visible to invitees.
Seeing these new methods for planning events, I cannot help but be reminded of the ridiculous complexity of other aspects of the site, like the difference between Community Pages, Groups, and Fan Pages. Facebook has recently tried to clean up these different sections of the site and refocus their purposes, but then it comes along and shows off two completely different ways of creating an event. Will the purposes of each be obvious to the ordinary user?
While on one hand, it's neat to be able to quickly create events in one place and more intricate ones in another place, I tend to think that Facebook should unify its features so that people don't get confused or distracted.
Steven Loeb
