As Facebook turns 13 tomorrow, Discover People starts rolling out in mobile app

This Saturday, February 4, Facebook turns 13, a day the company calls Friends Day. In launching products to celebrate friendship and encouraging people to take time to connect with their friends, Facebook recently began adding personalized Friends Day videos at the top of users’ News Feed. Additionally, Facebook is now rolling out a new Discover People section in its mobile app for iOS and Android.

As first noted by TechCrunch, Discover People basically encourages Facebook users to add any missing pieces of information to their profile, browse a list of upcoming events to see who else may also be going, check out people in their city they’re not yet friends with or browse people who share the same employer.

Discover People soft-launched in New Zealand and Australia last year and now it’s being gradually made available to all users of Facebook’s mainland mobile app.

A spokesperson told the publication:

Too often, it’s hard to learn more about people around you, whether it is upon starting a new job, joining a new group, deciding if you want to attend an event, or moving to a new place.

To make it easier, we’re starting to roll out a new bookmark in the More menu called ‘Discover People’ that can help you discover more about people you have things in common with by browsing through profile cards of people in your community.

Discover People is a staggered rollout so it may not be available to you as of yet.

To see if Discover People is available to you, launch Facebook for iPhone and iPad and tap the hamburger icon in the lower-right corner: Discover People should be located in the navigation section below Friends, Events, Groups, Nearby Places and other options.

Discover People asks you to update the various sections of your profile, like your bio, featured photographs and more. An introduction at the top of this section will be visible only by those in the Discover People section.

Because this feature is intended to encourage users to make new connections, only public information is shown on the profiles that are displayed here while those you’ve already friended on Facebook are not listed.

The “People going to…” section lists upcoming events you liked, plan to attend or have been invited to. Tap any event to see the profiles of the people attending. You can swipe through the individual profiles or scroll through your past events further down.

As stated before, Facebook is encouraging its vast user base to celebrate its thirteenth birthday by sharing their Friends Day videos with friends and family on the service.

Here’s what a typical Friends Day video looks like.

You’ve probably seen your own personalized Friends Day video at the top of your News Feed on Facebook. Automatically created by Facebook from your popular photos, shares and other items, the video is basically a compilation of your Facebook friends and the memories you’ve shared together.

Facebook Messenger users can join the celebration by sending friendship-themed GIFs.

Messenger should highlight these GIFs for you. If not, you can browse them manually by tapping the GIF button at the bottom of the conversation, the social network said.

Grab Facebook for iOS for free from App Store.

Source: TechCrunch