Facebook has announced its first app made just for virtual reality, though you'll need a certain kind of headset to take advantage of it.
The inventively named Facebook 360 is designed just for Samsung Gear VR. The mobile VR headset, you may recall, was developed in partnership with Oculus. Facebook spent a couple billion dollars to buy Oculus nearly three years ago.
The "360" harkens to another VR area Facebook is keen on promoting: immersive photos and videos. These are at the core of the Facebook 360 experience; the app will surface 360-degree pictures and vids from your News Feed to your face, among other features.
Facebook's newest app is broken up into four feeds, at least at launch. The first is Explore, which lets you discover interesting and popular 360 content posted to Facebook by media, organizations and "individual creators".
The next is Following, which, as the name suggests, shows you 360 photos and videos shared on Facebook by your friends and Pages and people you follow. The Saved feed is a storage locker for 360 content you've set aside to view later, and the Timeline feed basically lets you relive your own 360 uploads.
While not a wholly new feature, you can also react to 360 posts from within the Facebook 360 app as well as throw them on your own feed. Facebook says it will add more social functions soon.
To download Facebook 360, head into the Oculus app from your Gear VR-friendly Samsung device. Do a search for "Facebook 360" or check out the Oculus website, and voilà, you're ready to dive into a veritable treasure trove of virtual reality content.
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