Facebook’s new launches: ‘On This Day’ to flash back your memories and Blueprint for businesses 

Facebook has crossed 1.39 billion active users monthly, 82.2% of the daily active users coming from outside the US. There are 890 million daily active users on an average, and 100 million Indians are on the platform. According to eMarketer report, India will surpass the US as the largest Facebook user base on mobile by 2017.

On This Day – to take you down memory lane

Facebook has been part of our lives for a decade. We’ve invested so much of ourselves in the platform and we often indulge in looking back at old photos and other memories we shared because it reminds us moments of our lives.

That is why Facebook has announced On This Day, a new way to look back at things you have shared and posts you’ve been tagged in on Facebook. The beauty of it is only you can see your On This Day page. Facebook has begun rolling it out globally on the web and mobile.

The official statement from Facebook said, “On This Day shows content from this date in the past. For example, you might see past status updates, photos, posts from friends and other things you’ve shared or been tagged in – from one year ago, two years ago, and so on. Only you will see this content unless you decide to share it with your friends.” To see your On This Day page visit facebook.com/onthisday.

It also lets you subscribe to notifications so you’ll be alerted when you have memories to look back on. Facebook says you can edit and delete old posts, or decide to share your memories with friends. Facebook also assures its users that its algorithm will be tasked to filter out potentially unpleasant memories, such as posts from your ex or deceased profiles. We don’t know how good the filter is, we’ll have to see the algorithm in action to give our verdict. At the end of last year, Facebook launched Year In Review feature that was used by many users.

Before Facebook debuted On This Day, Timehop was serving its six million daily users their nostalgic moments. Let see what effect On This Day will have on Timehop. Though Timehop mines diverse social networks from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Flickr, Foursquare, Dropbox, Facebook’s On This Day is dependent on FB posts probably Instagram in the future.

Blueprint - tools for marketers

This is a free e-learning program aimed at businesses and advertisers. The move shows how Zukerberg is throwing his muscle behind brands and agencies and small businesses improve their ads and ad performance on Facebook. Blueprint is not merely an information hub on the site; it is a combination of online courses with in-person training and Facebook certifications for brands that excel at Facebook marketing. This is very similar to what Google had, AdWords certification program.

Facebook said in a Facebook for Business post introducing Blueprint and Learn How: “The foundation of Blueprint is its eLearning center, which features more than 35 online courses and has tracks organized by category such as direct-response marketing, as well as tracks designed for specific roles, such as digital buying. Blueprint eLearning easily integrates with other learning and development programs and offers reporting to track progress and results.”

Facebook has also launched the Learn How for smaller businesses and an ad copy cheat sheet.