• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, October 20, 2016

Facebook’s never-ending quest to insinuate itself into every aspect of your existence took another big step forward this week with the announcement that you will soon be able to order food and other products and services with its e-commerce platform. Even better, you can get recommendations from your friends and then act on them in one seamless interface.

The service uses new e-commerce capabilities and partnerships with existing services to enable Facebook users to order food as well as perform other tasks like buying tickets, booking salon appointments, and getting quotes from local businesses, all within the Facebook app.

When a user writes a post asking for recommendations from friends, they just have to click “Recommendations” to activate the new service. Their friends’ suggestions then automatically appear on a map with links to the Facebook pages of those businesses, where they can then place an order or complete other tasks (if the business has activated those functions).

In addition to Facebook’s own e-commerce platform, the new functionality is powered by partnerships with third-party services like Delivery.com, MyTime, HomeAdvisor, Fandango, Ticketmaster, Eventbrite and Slice, among others. Users can already use Facebook Messenger to hail ride-sharing apps like Uber and Lyft.

Facebook isn’t charging businesses a fee or taking a percentage of sales to participate in the new service.

Facebook also announced that it has revamped the Events bookmark, making it easier to stay up to date on the latest events from friends and hosts, as well as browse recommendations based on what your friends like and your own events history. The new Events dashboard is rolling out over the next few weeks.