Everything You Might've Missed At Facebook's F8 Conference

Social media giant Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB) conducted its F8 conference this week and made various announcements including the launch of Chat Bots. Citi has released its key takeaways from the F8 conference.

Citi said Chat Bots is the most notable announcement of the event. Under this function, businesses can communicate with Messenger users via a bot by sending messages, images, stickers and calls to action.

However, Citi analyst Mark May warned investors to temper expectations as there was "minimal mention of monetization in these initial plans."

Facebook said that it would be making its Live API publicly available, and would be open sourcing the hardware and software for the newly introduced Facebook Surround 360 video camera. This opens the possibility of viewing the content in Gear VR or Oculus Rift.

Related Link: Is Facebook's "Culture Of Sharing" Drying Up?

"Although there was no clear monetization path highlighted at F8, the potential for Facebook Live specifically, and video on Facebook generally, should provide brand advertisers with strong advertising opportunities in the future," May wrote in a note to clients.

"We also note that Facebook's Live product provides a direct competitor to Twitter's Periscope, which could result in celebrities, athletes and other public figures defecting to Facebook's product due to its larger user base," May added.

Other Reveals

In addition, Facebook also unveiled Account Kit, a developer tool that will enable App logins with e-mail addresses and phone numbers. Despite receiving less fanfare, May said the developer adoption of Account Kit would help Facebook expand its lead over Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG), Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR), Yahoo! Inc.(NASDAQ: YHOO) and others in user identity verification.

The analyst added that 30–50 percent of mobile users still using their emails and phone numbers to login into websites and apps, and with Account Kit, Facebook will be able to gather information on these users and provide an opportunity to monetize them in the future.

Among others, Citi said other notable announcements were Quote Sharing, a "save button" for off-site articles, videos and AI tools for the visually impaired.

Shares of Facebook closed Friday down 1.08 percent at $109.65. Citi currently rates Facebook at Buy, with an attached price target of $133.00.