NEW YORK: Facebook Moments app helps in making share private photos easier. The app has been rolled out in the US on iOS and Android, and will be rolling out to more countries over time. Moments will let a user sync photos with their friends quickly and their friends can also share photos that they might have taken.
Moments groups the photos on a users’ phone based on when they were taken and relies on facial recognition technology to figure out which friends are in which photo. It will then prompt a user to privately sync those photos quickly and easily with specific friends. Moments also keeps all of synced photos organized and even lets a user search them to find the ones that a specific friend might be in. The facial recognition is the same technology that powers tag suggestions on Facebook. Users have the option of limiting these tag searches as well. A user will have to grant the app access to their camera roll and Moments will prompt them on what photos can be synced or organized based on the location, etc. If you share with a friend who is not on Moments, they will get a Message in Facebook Messenger telling them that the photos are waiting. With Moments, the advantage is that you can share photos between friends without necessarily posting everything to Facebook. Not everyone might be keen to put out their entire wedding album on Facebook and thus Moments can be the answer in such a case. Facebook Moments is a new attempt from the company to introduce another successful app. In the past, Facebook introduced apps like Poke, Camera for iPhone, Slingshot which was Facebook’s take on Snapchat and so far they have not been very successful. Poke and Camera were both pulled from the Apple App Store eventually. Will Moments break the curse for Facebook? Given that Google Photos just launched, it will be a tough battle.
