Most of us make or receive at least one phone call a day, but do you always answer the call when you don’t know who’s calling? If you’re anything like me, you never answer if you don’t know who it is. But now with the help of Facebook, you might be answering a few more calls.
Yesterday, Facebook announced they have started testing a new feature called Hello. According to Facebook’s News Room:
Hello connects with Facebook so you can see who’s calling, block unwanted calls and search for people and places.
When you get a call, Hello will show you info about who’s calling you, even if you don’t have that number saved in your phone. You will only see info that people have already shared with you on Facebook.
You can also search for people and businesses on Facebook and call them with just one tap. So if a friend tells you about a new restaurant in your neighborhood, you can use Hello to find their hours, make a reservation and get directions, all without leaving the app.
Hello makes it easy to block unwanted calls. From your settings, you can block specific numbers and adjust whether you want to automatically blocks calls from commonly blocked numbers. Blocked calls go straight to voicemail and can be reviewed in your recent calls
With Hello, people will only see info they could otherwise find on Facebook. We’ve also made it easy to control your experience using your settings on Facebook and in the app.
We will be testing Hello, a Facebook Creative Labs app, on Android starting today. You can download it in the Play Store.
Since many Facebook users put their phone number on Facebook, this feature is likely to be extremely useful. You no longer need to guess who is calling you, as long as you are 1) friends with the caller on Facebook, and 2) they stored their number in Facebook. You will know exactly who is calling, even if you haven’t specifically programmed their number in your phone. Or let’s say you have more than one contact named Ryan, and you were too lazy to put in their last name. Now you know which Ryan is calling, since their Facebook picture also appears when they decide to give you a ring. Still not convinced? Check out the video below to see exactly how it works:
While the feature seems exciting, I ask myself if it is really needed. You already have the ability to sync your Facebook contacts to your phone. With Google, you also have the ability to search for businesses and call them “with just one tap”. Want to block a call? Your phone can already block calls from any number you desire. Although your phone can already perform all the actions that Hello has to offer, Facebook does have one thing going for them, Hello is a one stop shop to provide you all of those features.
What are your thoughts? Do you think Facebook’s Hello feature fills a gap? Let us know what you think in the comment section below.