Celebrating One Year of Games on Messenger with New Features, New Games and More

What a difference a year makes. Just over a year ago, we launched games on Messenger and introduced the Instant Games platform to developers, enabling them to build customized gaming experiences for both Messenger and News Feed. 

When we first launched, we had 20 games available in just 30 markets. Now, we have over 70 games from more than 100 developers available worldwide. This progress is exciting, but even more than that, we’ve been thrilled at the response over the last year from both the people playing and the developers building.

Games are an authentic extension of the connection people feel in Messenger — a fun, interactive and powerful way to connect to people you chat with daily or friends and family who live far away. It’s with this spirit we’re introducing two new features to Instant Games that will help you engage and connect with those you care about in new and different ways.

First, we’re launching live streaming, which will start to roll out today, to gamers who love to share their playthroughs and engage in a little smack talk. The new live streaming capability via Facebook Live makes it simple for people to play and share their experiences with those who love games on Messenger. It’s easy to get started: while playing a game, tap the camera icon located in the upper right corner of the game. Once selected, you can choose the audience you want to broadcast to and add a short description to say something about your video. To start recording, just press the “Start Live Video” button. Once the broadcast ends the video will be published to your Page or profile so that fans and friends who missed it can watch at a later time. You can remove the video post at any time, just like any other post.

Video chats are a great way for people to connect, discuss and share moments with each other when text just isn’t enough. Over 245 million people video chat every month on Messenger, with the option to use fun effects and capture pictures of their moments together. We’re excited to begin a test soon that will enable people to play games with each other while video chatting. When this feature is introduced early next year, Words With Friends from Zynga will be the first game to use it and allow friends to watch each other’s reactions as they run up the score.

We’re also thrilled to welcome a handful of new games coming soon that all have one thing in common — they’re some of the world’s most popular game franchises of all time, reimagined for the Instant Games platform.

Launching globally in early 2018 is none other than Angry Birds, a new game built for Messenger that will feature classic gameplay with an exciting new way to challenge friends. Angry Birds will join the recently launched Tetris®, which includes beloved features like marathon mode and the ability to play with friends in Messenger group chats. Both games are built by CoolGames, an Instant Games platform developer.

In the coming weeks and months, we’ll have even more epic games launching on Messenger:

• Sonic Jump from SEGA, developed by SEGA HARDlight, will introduce a new, arcade style adventure to Messenger, featuring classic Sonic enemies, power-ups and traps as players challenge friends to see who can jump the farthest. Sonic Jump is rolling out now in select regions and will launch globally in the coming weeks.
• Disney Tsum Tsum, published by LINE and launching in 2018, will bring beloved Disney characters to Messenger as players collect, connect and pop Tsum Tsum based on the popular Disney Tsum Tsum plushes.
• GungHo Online Entertainment, Inc., makers of the hit game Puzzle & Dragons, will launch a new casual puzzle game for both existing Puzzle & Dragons fans and new players to enjoy.

Finally, after a year of incredible gaming experiences, we asked a few of our game developer partners to share their favorite facts since launching their game on Messenger…check it out:

We’re so glad that people are embracing the amazing experiences game developers are building for Instant Games. To the people who continue to enjoy, share, compete and challenge themselves and their friends to games on Messenger, thanks for playing and game on.

Facebook’s 2017 Year In Review

Today we are announcing our 2017 Year in Review highlighting the top ways people came together on Facebook to support one another.

First, people came together to react and talk about important moments and events that happened around the world. The top three moments that people discussed globally in 2017 were:

• International Women’s Day: This was the No. 1 most talked about moment in 2017, doubling from last year, with people around the world talking, sharing and posting in celebration of women and related issues.
• Super Bowl 51: Fans around the world turned to News Feed to cheer for their favorite teams, celebrate with Lady Gaga and debate the top TV ads, with more than 262 million views of Super Bowl-related videos on the platform.
• Las Vegas Violence: This tragic incident drove conversation around the world, which in turn motivated more than 3,300 people to offer help to their community through our Crisis Response tools on Facebook.

Second, people came together to support one another in times of crisis. 2017 was a difficult year with natural disasters and violence around the world, but it was inspiring to see people help each other when they needed it most. The top three moments where we saw people come to each other’s aid were:

• Earthquake in Mexico: The response to this crisis in late September drove the highest number of total interactions within Crisis Response on Facebook of the year, with millions of people marking themselves safe, offering help to their community or donating to the cause.
• Hurricane Harvey: In late August, the community rallied to help those in need by raising more than $20 million in the biggest fundraising effort for a single crisis in 2017 on Facebook.
• One Love Manchester: The most viewed video and live broadcast on Facebook in 2017, this benefit concert generated over 80 million views and raised more than $450,000 for those affected by the Manchester terror attack.

Finally, people used Facebook to get together in person. The top two ways people connected through these offline moments by creating Events on Facebook were:

• Total Solar Eclipse: This celestial moment in August brought the world together through more than 20,000 Facebook Events in more than 80 countries.
• Women’s March on DC: On January 21, The Women’s March on DC brought over 500,000 people together through the largest Facebook event for a single cause in 2017.

                         Get your video now

Your Year In Review

We also want to create a Year In Review for you. Starting Wednesday, you may see a personalized video in your News Feed. This video includes moments from this past year that you’ve shared or been tagged in, and compiles them in a short video that can be edited and shared. You can access your video by visiting 

                                            Get your video now

facebook.com/yearinreview.

Methodology

The top moments of this year’s Year In Review were determined by gathering a list of the top keywords by volume mentioned in a single day on Facebook between January 1st and November 1st, 2017. To identify which topics were unique to 2017, we compared these keywords to the previous year’s maximum single-day volume. This means that keywords like Mother’s Day and Halloween, which typically represent the top moments every year, do not repeatedly appear at the top of the list.

yearinreview2017

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Facebook wishes you a Happy New Year

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New Year's Eve celebration in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
New Year is the time at which a new calendar year begins and the calendar's year count increments by one. Many cultures celebrate the event in some manner.[1] The New Year of the Gregorian calendar, today mostly in use, falls on 1 January (New Year's Day), as was the case both in the old Roman calendar (at least after about 713 BCE) and in the Julian calendar that succeeded it.



 The order of months was January to December in the Old Roman calendar during the reign of King Numa Pompilius in about 700 BCE, according to Plutarch and Macrobius, and has been in continuous use since that time. Many countries, such as the Czech Republic, Italy, Spain, the UK, and the United States, mark 1 January as a national holiday.

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Facebook wishes you a Happy New Year

New Year 

During the Middle Ages in western Europe, while the Julian calendar was still in use, authorities moved New Year's Day variously, depending upon locale, to one of several other days, among them: 1 March, 25 March, Easter, 1 September, and 25 December. These New Year's Day changes generally reverted to using January 1 before or during the various local adoptions of the Gregorian calendar, beginning in 1582. The change from March 25 – Lady Day, one of the four quarter days – to January 1 took place in Scotland in 1600, before the ascension of James VI of Scotland to the throne of England in 1603 and well before the formation of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. In England and Wales (and in all British dominions, including Britain's American colonies), 1751 began on March 25 and lasted 282 days, and 1752 began on January 1.[2] For more information about the changeover from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar and the effect on the dating of historical events etc., see Old Style and New Style dates.

A great many other calendars have seen use historically in different parts of the world; some such calendars count years numerically, while others do not. The expansion of Western culture during recent centuries has seen such widespread official adoption of the Gregorian calendar that its recognition and that of January 1 as the New Year has become virtually global. (Note for example the New Year celebrations held in Dubai to mark the start of 2014, which broke the world record for the most fireworks set off in a single display,[3] lasting for six minutes and including the use of over 500,000 fireworks.)

Nevertheless, regional or local use of other calendars persists, along with the cultural and religious practices that accompany them. Many places (such as Israel, China, and India) also celebrate New Year at the times determined by these other calendars. In Latin America the observation of traditions belonging to various native cultures continues according to their own calendars, despite the domination of recently arrived cultures. The most common dates of modern New Year's celebrations are listed below, ordered and grouped by their alignment relative to the Gregorian calendar.

What is Singles’ Day?

Chinese Singles' Day or Guanggun Jie (Chinese: 光棍节; pinyin: Guānggùn Jié; Wade–Giles: Kuang-kun chieh; literally: "bare sticks holiday") is an entertaining festival widespread among young Chinese people,^[1] to celebrate the fact that they are proud of being single.

 The date, November 11th (11/11), is chosen because the number "1" resembles an individual that is alone. This festival has become the largest online shopping day in the world,

 with sales in Alibaba's sites Tmalland Taobao at US$5.8 billion in 2013, US$9.3 billion in 2014, US$14.3 billion in 2015 and over US$17.8 billion in 2016.

Chinese Singles' Day or Bachelors' Day, which originated from Nanjing University in 1993, was initially celebrated at various universities in Nanjing during the 1990s.^[6] It got the name "Singles' Day" because the date consists of four "one"s. Upon graduating, these college students carried the university tradition into society. Singles' Day has been largely popularized in the internet era and is now observed by youth in several regions outside China as well.

Singles' Day serves as an occasion for single people to party with single friends. The holiday was initially only celebrated by young men, hence the name, "Bachelors' Day", but is now widely celebrated by both sexes.^[7] 'Blind date' parties are also popular during this day in an attempt to bid goodbye to their single lives. Some schools of a university put forward a special program to gather singles together for celebration. Singles may take on a bemoaning or self-deprecating attitude for remaining single as a university student, but this has helped curb that negativity.^{[citation needed]}

2011 marked the "Singles Day of the Century" (Shiji Guanggun Jie), this date having six "ones" rather than four—an excuse to take celebrations to a higher level.^[8] Shopping promotions were highlighted throughout China and activities were widespread. Although this date is meant to celebrate singlehood, the desire to find a spouse or mate is often expressed by young Chinese on this date, while other love-related issues are discussed by the Chinese media.

Guess #1: Nanjing University's dorm culture. This is the most acceptable guessing for the origin of Single's Day. In 1993 at a dorm called "Mingcaowuzhu (All single men)" at Nanjing University, the four students talked about how to find a girlfriend every night before sleeping for a long time. During their little talks, they came up with the idea of organizing some activities on the upcoming November 11. Since then, those activities organized on November 11 were widely spread to many universities in Nanjing even in many other cities. With these students graduating from universities, this university culture was brought to the whole society, and because of the large amount of single people and social media's strong power, this day has become more and more popular in the Chinese society.

Guess #2: A love story. A young man whose name was Mu Guang Kun, was born on November 11, 1970. Because of his special name in Chinese, he had been called "Guang Gun" since primary school. During his second year at Nanjing University, he began a romantic relationship with a girl. However, the girl was diagnosed with cancer and died later. The young man went to the top floor, fluting with some candles on the night of the girl's death. He seemed to become another person after that night. On his birthday during his senior year, his roommates also went to the top floor with him again to keep him company. Afterwards, this sad story became well known in Nanjing University and his birthday was then set up to be "Guang Gun Festival".

Last year, Alibaba set an all-time record for sales made on one day, Singles’ Day.

On November 11, 2016, Alibaba raked in a whopping $18B in sales.

Let’s repeat that: $18 billion dollars in one day.

Though the meaning behind the holiday itself may seem like a joke, it is obvious that people take shopping on this day very seriously.

And what people buy on Singles’ Day may surprise you.

“We might buy clothes, lingerie, TVs, skincare — things we’ve been coveting and don’t totally need — on Black Friday,” says Cox. “The Chinese buy discounted noodles, dry goods, household items, what I might consider very BORING . . . but all my friends were SO into it.”

As Cox puts it “Singles’ Day, similar to Black Friday, invokes a true scarcity mindset in consumers . . in a country as big as China that’s gone through as many rapid developments as quickly as it has, it’s the perfect storm.”

Just when you thought Americans take shopping seriously, it’s clear that U.S. citizens have nothing on the Chinese. “In China, shopping is a sport. Really, it’s entertainment. It’s fun. It’s something you do with your friends several times a week. Singles’ Day is no exception,” explains Cox.

Immediate delivery

Shopping on Singles’ Day means that you reap the benefits of China’s monstrosity of a shipping industry.

According to Cox, shipping in China is 2-3 times as fast as in the United States. Even though China is just as big as the United States, packages in China are packaged and shipped all hours of the night.

On Singles’ Day, “the delivery of items starts AS SOON AS they are ordered,” exclaims Cox. “It’s possible to get something the same day.”

Speaking of immediate delivery . . .

If you’re single, why not take advantage of this day to spoil yourself?

Whether you are in China or not, it only seems fair that November 11 worldwide should be a guilt-free day for singles to treat themselves, and celebrate navigating the complexities of life without help from a significant other.

With the piles of new goods that you’re bound to have post-Singles’ Day, clearing out some space in your home is a must.

You may not want to permanently go “out with the old, in with the new,” but rather put the old items away for a bit.

Thanks to Closetbox, that’s incredibly easy. And like delivery in China, Closetbox is just as efficient (if not even more), and hassle-free for you.

Closetbox’s valet storage services make it so that you don’t need anyone else around to help you move your boxes into storage.

Simply pack your boxes up, give Closetbox a call, and your items will be swept away into a highly-secure storage unit that is monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

When you’re ready to bring some of those old items back into your life, Closetbox is there to take them out of storage, and safely deliver them to your doorstep.

You certainly don’t need a significant other in your life to do that!

How to create Facebook Halloween Day Video

If you’re looking for fun and hair-raising ways to get into the Halloween spirit this year, look no further than Facebook Halloween Day Video

Halloween is a top holiday that brings people together, with people celebrating by sharing photos and attending events on Facebook, sending photos to friends on Messenger, and talking about their costumes in Facebook posts. Today, we’re announcing dozens of Halloween-themed experiences on Facebook

create Facebook Halloween Day Video

1- Enter the following link  ➡ https://goo.gl/w7Ejno 

2 -CHOOSE A TEMPLATE : On the homepage there are several popular templates which vary depending on the season. You may pick one of them or start browsing categories.

 There are two types of templates: picture and videos. Choose one that suits your goal. Free templates are marked with the Free band.

Each template has a detailed description and may be previewed. To choose a theme, just click Personalize it Now on the template preview.

Some templates require to specify how many people you want to feature.

3- PREPARE A HEAD

Find a successful photo of you, your friend, or any other person who you would like to feature your funny dance video and upload it. You may also use Facebook photos for this purpose or take an iPhone selfie. The tool automatically recognizes a head and crops the photo. All you need is to zoom and rotate it, fine-tune contours, and position the mouth, so that your video character could speak. All your heads will be saved in your account for further usage

4- PUT FACE ON THE VIDEO : When you saved a face, just drag-‘n-drop it onto the video character. If you chose a template that requires several characters, make sure you uploaded all needed faces. Click Done

Then you’ll be directed to the preview of your clip. Here you’ll be able to add a title for it. On this stage you can easily record the video.

5- ADD A MESSAGE (OPTIONAL) : If you’re going to send the resulted video as an ecard, consider adding a greeting for your friend. Click Skip or Done to finish.

6- SEND THE VIDEO : If you picked a free template, you may send the video for free via email or Facebook.

BEST FREE JIBJAB TEMPLATES

Now let’s view the most popular JibJab templates for various occasions.

FREE BIRTHDAY TEMPLATES

Here are quick filters which will help you find a funny birthday ecard or video depending on the recipient gender or character.

In Bithdays category there are 332 templates and only one called Singing Cake is free. Unfortunately, you can add a custom photo onto it.

Among Premium ones, draw attention to Tequila Birthday (4 people), Roller Disco Female (1 person), and I Feel Good (1 person).

CONGRATULATION TEMPLATES

There is only one free template – Hall of Presidents, where adding your custom heads is not available.

1. CHOOSE A TEMPLATE