Facebook revamps Events with Calendar and List views

With an expansion of the social network's Events page, users can now see friends' birthdays, parties, and all other events far in advance

What started out as a Facebook hackathon project has led to the social network's new-fangled Events page design.

Starting today, Facebook is rolling out its redesigned Events page, which comes with Calendar and List views. Now users can see birthdays, parties, RSVPs, and all other events up to several months in advance of the current date.

Spearheaded by Facebook software engineer Bob Baldwin, who created the homepage Events permalink at an earlier hackathon, the new Events design was fashioned to make it easier for users to organize their events, make plans, and see their friends' birthdays.

"Before a recent hackathon, a few of us created a Facebook group called 'Social Calendar Dreamers' to spark discussion around making Events more visual," Baldwin wrote in a blog post today. "At the next hackathon, engineers from the events, photos, messages, and other teams hacked through the night to build a better way to view events. By 6 a.m., we had a prototype that worked."

Once the engineers revealed their prototype to the rest of the company, it quickly led to additional features being built and approval for the site.

What users will now see when they click on "Calendar" on the top left of the Events dashboard is a List and Calendar view. The List view shows day-to-day events that users have been invited to, along with Suggested Events. Users can scroll through the Events and respond to invites without leaving the page. The Calendar view shows events laid out in a grid calendar with events, birthdays, and RSVPs listed in each day's box.

This new setup for Facebook Events comes on the heels of Google Plus' redesigned Events page. Google rolled out its new Events page last month, which includes scheduling, RSVPstatus, and photo sharing.