Would You Like to See When Your Facebook Friends are Nearby?
Foursquare has been a steady hit for a few years by providing people with the ability to apply social networking to the real world. Techcrunch report that Facebook are set to offer members the ability to find out whether any of their friends are in the area.
The new mobile feature will allow people to locate other Facebook users that are close to them geographically. The feature, called Find Friends Nearby, allows users to locate and add new friends at events or locations, without having to find them by name.
To access the feature users need to be both logged into Facebook and Find Friends Nearby on their mobile phone.
At the moment the feature is just a rumor, with Facebook not officially launching it.
"We are constantly testing new features but have nothing more to share at this time," a Facebook spokesperson said today.
With more people accessing Facebook via their mobile than their desktop it seems sensible for the company to improve its mobile offering, especially as they look for ways to monetize these users.
Facebook engineer Ryan Patterson told TechCrunch that he originally created the feature with another engineer for a hackathon project.
"For me, the ideal use case for this product is the one where when you're out with a group of people whom you've recently met and want to stay in contact with," Patterson said. "Facebook search might be effective, or sharing your vanity addresses or business cards, but this tool provides a really easy way to exchange contact information with multiple people with minimal friction."
That Facebook are going down this path is not surprising. It is less than 2 months since they bought location based social discovery company Glancee.
Would you use this feature?
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