Last week, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg open the annual F8 2-day conference, with 2019 marking its 10^th year. Over the 2 days, Facebook would announce several updates to the 5,000 developers, creators and entrepreneurs from around the globe on its main social network as well as Instagram, WhatsApp & Messenger.

With Facebook’s reputation hanging in the balance due to privacy being a main battle for the social giant, the CEO ferociously embedded the message that ‘the future is private’ to his large audience, whilst also doing his best to not only keep developers interested in the platform. At the same time, he announced several new updates coming to Facebook's product lineup, which includes the main Facebook app, Messenger, Instagram, Oculus, and WhatsApp.

"The future is private," the company promised repeatedly.

With this being vocalised several times throughout the conference, it’s difficult to ignore that the main aim of Facebook is consumers sharing to their friends as much as possible. As such makes it harder to believe that in 2019, Facebook will have more access to user data than ever, such as shopping behaviour to dating.

Here are some of the biggest announcements over the 2-day period:

A group-up redesign of Facebook

Massive re-design to take place imminently on both desktop and mobile. A facelift of the social network will hopefully make things easier to navigate, and with a cleaner design and less blue.

Privacy Efforts

Facebook are in desperate need of fighting back the negative press they’ve been receiving in the last 12 months, with the problem of privacy being the forefront of that. 6 components were outlined in the CEO’s talk and hope to engrain into Facebook soon: private interactions, encrypted chats, reduced permanence, safety, interoperability and secure data storage. Zuckerberg stated that the creation of all of this could take 12 months minimum. 

Facebook Dating App

New feature called ‘Secret Crushes’. Facebooks look on Tinder and you can match with friends or find ones that have always had an interest in you. Unfortunately, this is only available in certain countries and being rolled out in the UK and US is yet to be discussed.

Camera Improvements for Instagram

New features within Instagram app, with making filters and camera modes appear on a wheel at the bottom of the screen for users to swivel through. There will be new dedicated buttons for broadcasting, as well as a ‘create’ mode, which will allow users to create a post without any visuals.

Oculus virtual reality headsets

Facebook & Oculus have announced that their Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift S VR headsets will be available and ready to ship May 21^st. They will be available to ship to 22 countries at the end of the month and are going for $399 and on pre order now.