Meta Skipping F8 Developer Conference This Year

Meta has announced that it won’t be hosting its mostly annual F8 developer conference this year.

The social media giant, which was formerly known as Facebook after its most prominent platform, said in a blog post that it’s taking a “brief break in programming” as it looks to continue to develop the metaverse, which has become the company’s primary focus since it rebranded last year.

Instead of F8, Meta plans to connect with developers through other more focused events throughout the rest of the year, including the company’s inaugural business messaging event, Conversations, scheduled on 19 May.

The company will also host Connect later this year, where it plans to showcase its latest advancements in augmented reality, virtual reality and the metaverse. It was at last year’s Connect event that the company changed its name to Meta to represent its new ambitions in building the so-called next frontier of the internet.

“Similar to the early stages of the web, building the metaverse will be a collaborative effort at every stage – with other companies, creators and developers like you,” said Diego Duarte Moreira, Director of Products and Partnerships at Meta.

This isn’t the first time that Meta has opted to skip the F8 developer conference. The California-based company similarly scrapped the event in 2009, 2012 and 2013. It also hasn’t held an in-person F8 since 2019. In 2020 and 2021, the event was online only due to health risks brought by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Meta typically hosts F8 to announce developer and entrepreneur-focused additions to its lineup of platforms. In 2018, for instance, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook was getting its own dating service, a new product that would allow people to start conversations outside of the core Facebook and Messenger apps.

The company’s decision to skip this year’s conference perhaps suggests that whatever is in development is not quite ready to be unveiled to the public yet. If anything, it gives Meta more time to focus on its metaverse-related initiatives and come out with a more packed show later this year or in the future.

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• Meta has announced that it won’t be hosting its mostly-annual F8 developer conference this year.

• The social media giant is instead focusing on furthering its initiatives in the metaverse space.

• This isn't the first time the F8 conference was scrapped, with the company doing the same in 2009, 2012 and 2013.