Zuckerberg offers sneak peek at potential features coming to Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg gave us a glimpse of what the social giant could be bringing to Facebook next year, and it’s very cool indeed.

Just yesterday, Zuckerberg took to Facebook Live to show off some cool features that the team has been working on: some cool features that we could see on Facebook in the future, which include location requesting, GIFs as comments, and more.

Facebook’s Oculus Touch controllers are well-received by critics, some even calling them “the best virtual reality controllers so far.” Well, it seems Facebook is already hard at work making the Oculus Touch even better. Zuckerberg showed a demo device – a modified version of the current Oculus Touch – which physically changes its temperature depending on your virtual interaction. For instance, if you are hovering over a fire in your virtual reality like Zuckerberg was, the controllers will get physically warm.

There are also some big changes that might be coming to the social network itself. Zuckerberg demoed a new feature in Messenger, where you can request someone’s precise location. He explained that this “builds on the safety check work” that the company has done. Personally, I think it’s a fantastic idea, and takes the current emergency check-in process one step further. After all, social media is playing an increasingly bigger role in emergency situations.

Next up: more GIFs. If you love using GIFs in Messenger, you are going to love this – in the near future, you may be able to use GIFs as comments. Thanks to Giphy and Riffsy, users will be able to find the right GIF just like in Messenger and post it as a comment. Now, this is something that I’ve been waiting for a very long time.

The last of the demoed features is an AI-based shared albums feature. Essentially, the machine recognizes what you want (i.e. photos from the wedding) and gathers all the relevant photos and videos and creates an album for everyone to see.

Although these are not confirmed features, it is highly likely that we will see at least some of them next year – we will make sure to keep you updated!