Facebook revamps events feature

So, what are you up this weekend? And more relevant, do you want one of your Facebook friends to come along?

Well, the social network just made that impromptu get-together a little easier with the launch Saturday morning of a new version of Facebook Events, which lets you create an event directly from the "Events" box on your Facebook home page in one quick step.

Or you can create events via the "Events" dashboard in the left-hand menu, which is more useful for "more formal" events that are being planned further out, says Facebook engineer Devin Naquin, in a blog post about the new feature.

The distinction is not unlike the difference between doing a "Quick Add" and creating an actual event in Google Calendar.

As for ever-important privacy concerns, users will want to know that they can chose between public and private events. Anyone can RSVP to a public event. Private events are only visible to invitees and the event shows up in their news feed.

And all invitees to such events will be able to post messages, photos, videos and links on the event's wall, Naquin says, adding that events created prior to Saturday will retain all of their original settings.

The Next Web Apps blog quickly noted that the new feature is similar to that of San Francisco-based start-up Plancast, which was one of Facebook's fbFund 2009 initial winners and received a microseed round of funding.