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New Facebook Feature Will Connect Users In The Real World | DrivingSales News

New Facebook Feature Will Connect Users In The Real World

April 18, 2014 0 Comments

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Facebook is well known for creating as many types of virtual connections as possible.  Some may be asking if there is any type of connection that is still untouched by the company.  Facebook is answering yes, with its upcoming “Nearby Friends” feature, intended to connect people in the real world.

The optional feature will be added to Facebook’s mobile app sometime in the next month, with the intention of competing with existing services including Foursquare, Google’s Latitude, and Apple’s Find My Friends.  Ever since Facebook acquired Glancee in 2012, a mobile app that assisted users with discovering people that are nearby, the company is said to have been working on this new initiative.

A Facebook spokesperson explained that the company is not planning to use these geographic insights to target advertising, as it does not work for Pages, so brands will not be able to easily utilize this feature to track the location of users.  Instead, this feature is designed with individual users in mind.  “We think there is a lot of value in being able to share with your friends if you are nearby them…and know if they are nearby you.”

Andrea Vaccari, a product manager at Facebook as well as a Glancee co-founder, explained in a blog post that privacy is a primary consideration in the design of Nearby Friends, ensuring that users will be able to choose which friends are able to see their location.  When a user turns on the new feature, they will only be occasionally notified when their Facebook friends are nearby, and the choice of whom these friends are will be all theirs.  Vaccari explained that, “You and your friends both have to turn on Nearby Friends and choose to share with each other to see when you’re nearby.”  Additionally, users will have the ability to share their exact location with specific friends for a set period of time.

However, Vaccari also explained that the scope of Nearby Friends expands further than simply allowing users to share their location with friends. The intention is for users to engage with personal connections based on their location whether they themselves are currently in that area or not.  Vaccari expands on this idea by giving the example that, “When you see a friend visiting a place you’ve been, it’s the perfect opportunity to send a recommendation for a great restaurant.”

Facebook’s massive user base will likely cause concern for other location-based social networks, such as Foursquare.  While Foursquare recently reported a revenue increase of approximately 600% in 2013, the upcoming Facebook addition of Nearby Friends could challenge future success for the company.

Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley recently told ReadWrite.com that, “The simple act of ‘checking-in’…does more than alert followers to where you are – it creates a data point that contains significant personal information about you and the businesses you patronize.”

Many experts agree that Foursquare’s growth can be clearly attributed to a shift from reward-based friend tracking to Yelp-like local business listings and reviews, with Facebook’s upcoming inclusion of Nearby Friends having the potential to significantly challenge the company’s reach in the future.

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The DrivingSales News team is dedicated to breaking the relevant and the tough stories affecting car dealers. Have questions for DrivingSales News? Reach the team at news@drivingsales.com.

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