Facebook iPad App Update Brings Trending Videos, Games, and More

Facebook is working on making its iPad app more than just an enlarged version of its iPhone app, and has rolled out an update that is 'testing new ways' to help users discover 'more timely and entertaining content.'

In a blog post on Monday, Facebook announced the roll-out of an update to its Facebook app for iPad in the US, which features a new column on the right-hand side in the app. This column will feature calendar updates, trending topics, trending videos, your games and popular games.

With the new column, which appears when the iPad is in landscape mode, Facebook is hoping to help people discover new games and quickly access games they have been playing. Facebook notes that more than 70 percent of its iPad app users played a Facebook-linked game in the past 90 days. The blog post also mentions that Facebook eventually plans to place ads for games in the right sidebar to ensure that "game developers can engage players".

To be eligible for this in-app promotion, Facebook says, game developers will have to register their iPad app with Facebook, integrate Facebook Login and upload a trailer video to Facebook's App Center. This might be incentive enough for some game developers to replace existing in-app accounts with Facebook Login.

(Also see: How To Manage Facebook Logins Used By Third-Party Websites)

Apart from games, the Facebook app for iPad now has a new feature called trending videos, which will be displayed in the sidebar. In the blog post, Facebook says, "Trending Video includes a personalized selection of the most-shared videos among your demographic on Facebook right now." Techcrunch reports that this feature offers in-line playable videos that are popular with your demographic.