Facebook Unveils Dedicated Groups App

Get In Groups

Facebook has just announced a new standalone app: Facebook Groups. Yep, another Facebook app to join the fellow ranks on your phone. I’d only just gotten all my apps in a nice symmetrical order as well. This is going to cause me minutes of frustration. The app will take away everything to do with Groups based in the two current apps and move it all to its own space. 


All the groups you’re a part of will pop up when you open the app. Facebook hopes that groups will receive a lot more love with their standalone app and notifications. It will also give popular users a greater platform to promote from. I can already see the next lycra clad bike ride in aid of that new farmers' market. Spandex for fresh syrup. I can’t help but shudder.

Facebook Groups will also offer users a method to discover new groups you may be interested in. It’ll take into account what groups your friends are in or what seems similar to your current groups. Sounds a tad vague to me, but I won’t pass judgement yet.

Shirely Sun, a product manager at Facebook, commented, saying they wanted the app to be "really really simple," adding they "want it to be very familiar to the current Facebook experience."

It also won’t be compulsory to begin with. But let’s remember that the Messenger app launched long before it was made the only way to use Facebook chat while on the go.  I can still remember the uproar and negative reviews the messenger app received when it became a compulsory app.

One outraged review on the iTunes store had this to say: "There is nothing that I could add to my messages that would make it so special that it deserves its own app. Even if I were perfectly articulate, completely deep and thought and could muster words that your strongest vocabulary couldn’t even fathom. I could be messaging someone on Facebook with the secrets to ColdFusion, extra-terrestrial life, the origin of God, and who killed JFK, and it still wouldn't deserve its own app."

Steady on there, dude. If you know the secrets to all that stuff I’d say it warrants a whole lot more than just an app. Or you can just tell me, I’ll cash in the ideas for you.

To be fair, I was against the idea of breaking away the messenger app. But truth be told it turned out to be a brilliant and refined piece of kit. So I’m very happy to see that Facebook are breaking away more aspects of its home app. Especially if it’ll improve performance on the poor thing. 

I’m sure that people will still complain. We really do hate any change to our social media habits. But, let’s place a little faith in Facebook and Facebook Groups. The messenger one turned out to be great despite a hate-fueled launch.

It’s flashing up on my phone right now.

Very distracting. 

Tom Welby

Tom has just graduated from University of East London in Creative and Professional Writing. He loves writing and is currently interning as content writer hoping to go further. His other loves include Arnold Schwarzenegger films and his dog. Follow him @TomAtSMF

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