Facebook’s F8 developer conference set to return on June 2 in virtual format

Facebook F8 developers conference will be held in a virtual stage

Facebook, the world’s largest social network is bringing back its F8 developer’s conference through a one-day virtual event on June 2. Facebook is calling it F8 Refresh. Last year the event was cancelled in the wake of the pandemic but this year, Facebook has decided to bring the annual developer-centric event back though it is expected to be a low-key affair.

Facebook’s VP of platform partnerships, Konstantinos Papamiltiadis said in a blog post that the event, the first time held in a virtual stage will be live-streamed on Facebook for Developers page on June 2nd and all interested developers can sign in now to get to know about the registration details.

However, this year will not likely witness the keynote address by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, according to media reports. Instead, Papamiltiadis will make the opening presentation in which he is expected to reveal about new productivity tools on Facebook and its other assets like Instagram, Oculus and WhatsApp. Zuckerberg too will be a part of the event but will address the developers in some other capacity.

Without Zuckerberg making the keynote address, the event seems to be a low-key affair with fewer big consumer-facing announcements expected as was the case in previous years. Nevertheless, there are a lot of issues to be addressed from platform moderation to its interest in augmented reality and virtual reality.

At the F8 2019, Facebook aimed to be “more privacy focused” about its products be it Messenger, WhatsApp or Instagram. A fresh new look for the Facebook app was rolled out that was faster and simpler, along with a dark mode. Facebook was revamped as a ‘marketplace’ by deploying around 300,000 developers to work and train its bots to ask standard questions to the customers.