Facebook looks to breathe new life into events with innovative ride-sharing features

One of Facebook’s most underused and disappointing features, the Events function, might be getting a makeover that will bring it a whole new lease of life and possibly even set it up as a competitor to Uber.

That’s the news from tech blog Business Insider, who did some cunning detective work and spotted some patent drawings which seem to indicate that Events were in for an overhaul.

As you’ll notice in the attached drawing, the Events page will feature a drop down menu where you can indicate whether you are going, going and driving or going but not driving. This information will give Facebook the opportunity to pair up people attending the event for effective ridesharing.

If you select the Going and Driving option, then a follow-up screen will ask you to indicate How many passengers you could comfortably take with you and if you would like to invite people to ride with you to the event. Facebook’s solid geo-location capabilities will also play a storng part in the process as you indicate where you will be travelling from.

If you’re not driving to the event, you also have a number of options. Facebook will show you who is driving to the event and offering rides and you can then decide whether you want to take them up on the offer.

The Facebook Events tab has long been one of the underperforming aspects of the site, despite Facebook boasting that some 500 million people created over 123 million events during 2015. Facebook Events and invitations as they function today seem to degenerate quickly into spam and desperate please to attend random events that you have very little interest in, so this would seem to be a solid development in that regard.

The Next Web reported in August of 2015 that Facebook was getting serious about events and was starting to make a distinction between public and private events. “Your only way of showing interest in an event right now is to select the ‘Join’ option,” they reported. “The company found people were often selecting the option only as a way of indicating interest – the people who join the event didn’t necessary attend. Facebook’s considering alternatives like “Follow” or “Remind me” so you can be updated on an event without necessarily committing.”

There are inherent risks involved with oversharing on Facebook and no doubt privacy advocated will go into a froth about Facebook knowing exactly where you live, what you drive and when you are leaving etc. But it does seem to make a whole lot of sense to leverage the size of Facebook for the purposes of de-congestion and, even though there are plenty of effective ride-sharing apps already out there, the scale of Facebook’s reach and its integration into your circle of like-minded friends, means that there is bound to be some overlap with many of the events that you want to attend. And if you also happen to meet someone face-to-face who you normally only ever interact with online, well then….that sounds like an idea that many people will be able to get behind.