The Events app was designed for a small user-base of event creators and social butterflies who nudged their friends to come out and play.
I was the design lead on the project with Patrick Keenan, who took over the project after my departure; early contributions from Kevin Schaefer.
The app was designed and built from 2015 to 2016, with an official launch in Oct 2016. It was eventually renamed "Local".
Facebook releases a standalone app for events
Events had a small cohort of power users who discovered, created and shared events with their network. Some used Facebook exclusively for Events, yet their actions had an engagement multiplier effect on the platform as a whole.
Event notifications and newsfeed stories were timely and valuable to people, but were drowned out by the Facebook content firehose. A significant portion of users had turned off notifications altogether.
Calendar integration and more tools were commonly requested by the community, but hard to justify in the Facebook app. Adding that functionality would add significant bloat and dilute its focus on content consumption.
In early concepts, the app would facilitate casual get-togethers with close friends by creating looser, "lightweight events". With a greater volume of events on the platform, the intent was to leverage an Event-only Newsfeed to nudge people to going out.
Create a lightweight event, keep track of your commitments, and get relevant information the day of the event
Events feed showing future opportunities, what's happening now and past events (FOMO)