Mark Zuckerberg knows he has the world by the short and curlies, given how addicted everyone is to Facebook.

Think of it like heroin – how many people say they are leaving for good, only to return days / weeks / months later to satisfy their craving?

In order to stay ahead of the chasing pack Facebook continues to improvise, with yesterday’s annual developer conference a prime example of that.

The F8 Conference saw Facebook lay out its vision for the future, and TIME has a breakdown of the four most important announcements:

Augmented reality

When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg kicked off Tuesday’s conference, he emphasized [sic] that the camera would play a larger role in how people interact with friends on the social network. Facebook is encouraging developers to build new augmented reality camera effects for Facebook, which will be launching in a closed beta starting immediately…

Based on the company’s demo, these photo effects will be able to move and adjust based on what the camera is pointing at. Users could fill a photo of a room with candy, for instance, or put swimming sharks around an image of a cereal bowl.

Facebook says its AR platform will eventually make it possible to leave a virtual note for a friend at a restaurant or create artwork that appears on a building wall when looking at it with your phone…

Facebook Spaces

Ever since Facebook acquired virtual reality firm Oculus VR for $2 billion in 2014, Zuckerberg has said that he sees VR as the future of social interaction. Facebook unveiled its first major step in that direction on Tuesday with Facebook Spaces, an app that makes it possible to spend time with friends in virtual reality.

Through the app, which launches in beta on Tuesday, users can create a digital avatar, then chat and interact with friends in VR. Facebook will generate an avatar based on your photos, which you can customize. During these hangouts, participants can draw with virtual markers, watch 360-degree videos, and call other friends through Messenger.

New Messenger features

Facebook’s selection of chat bots has quickly grown since the company opened its Messenger platform to developers, but there hasn’t been an easy way to find new bots. Facebook is addressing that issue by adding a new Discover tab accessible from the home screen. Here, Messenger will offer categories, recently used bots, trending bots, and a search field.

Facebook is also building chat extensions into Messenger, which make it possible for more than one person to interact with a third party app or business at the same time…

Facebook has been experimenting with its M virtual assistant since 2015, and now it’s finally bringing some of that intelligence to its chat app. When talking about what to grab for dinner in Messenger, M will now be able to suggest placing an order through Delivery.com. The announcement comes after Facebook recently announced that M will be coming to Messenger to serve up relevant stickers and perform other functions.

QR codes have become a large part of the way WeChat users interact with brands in China, and Facebook is betting some of that interest will translate to its own communication platform. The company is rolling out new QR codes that makes it possible to learn more about events in the real world by scanning them with your phone.

Developer Circles

Facebook is hoping to make its platform attractive for the next generation of app creators through its new Developer Circles initiative. The program is free and open to any developer, and will function as a forum for collaborating and sharing knowledge. Local developers will lead each circle by organizing offline events and managing a Facebook Group for that specific region. The company is pushing it as an opportunity for students and experienced coders alike.

Basically Facebook ain’t going nowhere, and the latest announcements show that the social media giant is determined to plug into every aspect of its users’ lives.

Vox with a little-added insight on that front:

If you’ve never tried virtual reality (and I haven’t) it probably sounds goofy and kind of pointless. But people who have tried it say it starts to feel natural surprisingly quickly. Even though avatars have cartoon faces and bodies, the realistic way their bodies move and interact creates a surprisingly realistic vibe.

The beta version of the software is being released today for Oculus users. But right now, the Oculus isn’t yet a mainstream technology…But we can expect the technology to get steadily more affordable in the coming years.

And over time, Facebook will look for ways to cross-pollinate ideas between its high-end Oculus headset and its low-end smartphone app. Because eventually these won’t be two separate products. Augmented-reality glasses will be cheap enough that everyone can afford them, and they’ll be able to transport your friends either to fully immersive virtual environments or to your living room.

Will this mean we can all work from home? If so thanks Mark, hugs all round.

[sources:time&vox]