Has Facebook put an end to the online gig guide?

It’s only a matter of time before Facebook annihilates every app under the sun. Has the conglomerate brought out a feature that’ll put an end to the humble gig guide? It’s looking likely.

Facebook Local is the relaunch of its standalone Events app. The app is essentially a guide to all the events, bars and restaurants nearby. The app also lets you see recommendations from your friends and which events they have expressed interest in.

The app is divided into four sections. The home screen offers a quick search option for nearby restaurants, cafes and attractions. You can filter the results by relevance, rating, distance and popularity. It’s not dissimilar to Zomato or Yelp. It also shows you which friends have visited the establishment, which I assume is based on whether or not they’ve checked in previously.

As you scroll down you’ll be able to which nearby events your friends are attending or interested in; you’ll also be able to see events that pages you like are hosting. This all links to your standard Facebook event page.

The second tab is your notifications, which is essentially a feed for all the events you’ve been invited to. Personally, I think this is one of the most helpful features of the app. I’m constantly finding myself in situations where someone has asked me whether or not I’m attending something that I had no idea about, which will inevitably lead to me being offended over not being invited to something, which then leads to me realising that I was in fact invited but the invitation got lost amongst all the other notifications.

The app also has a calendar feature which is populated by both whatever Facebook events you have responded to and whatever other calender’s you allow it access to.

Facebook local has essentially filtered out all the garbage things about the regular Facebook application. No more fake news, no more “going into Mondays like” memes; just a clean, streamlined social service.

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.