Facebook Events has been in sort of a stand-still while other aspects of the social networking platform have received overhauls. Generally the emphasis has been on events you've been specifically invited to and given the option to mark "Going" "Interested" or, in the old days, the somewhat harsh "Not Attending." As the algorithms that determined what would appear in a person's News Feed became more sophisticated, the same energy wasn't really applied to Events.

According to Wired:

Events has long been in what Facebook calls "maintenance mode." Basically, the very popular feature has had only a small dedicated team of engineers keeping the lights on, making sure you could smack a photo on the cover and tell people about your event. The progression toward something more usable started about a year ago.

Now, Facebook is going to start using its wealth of data on its users to guide them toward events they might not know about that they might find interesting. Events will appear more prominently in the News Feed, and event creators will have more insight into who has RSVP'd. In other words, Events will become a more powerful tool for marketers looking to target specific audiences, and users will have a greater ability to browse listings -- beyond their neighbor's next-door potluck -- worth attending in their communities. Facebook will even send users notifications to let them know of popular events in the area and whether, for example, a handful of your friends or connections are attending.

Already I feel a great, creeping sense of FOMO.

Other new possibilities for Facebook Events include, via Social Times:

When users RSVP to events in their News Feeds, a drop-down Related Events will appear underneath, offering suggestions for similar events those users may be interested in.

Users will be able to share events directly via the Facebook Messenger applications.

One-on-one chats in Messenger between event hosts and invitees will be enabled, and events will be shared as attachments, similar to photos or audio files.

Facebook is working on the ability to invite non-Facebook users to events, but Koolwal said this addition is slated for 2016 at the earlies. [...]

Hosts of private events will be able to tell if invitees viewed their invites. [...]

What do you think? Will Facebook's new attention to data vis a vis public events offer cool new services, or just increase the amount of party-related anxiety we already feel?