Facebook Tests A New Nearby Friends Feature

One of the hallmarks of Facebook has involved trying to connect people, and one of the newer features that the social media platform is testing is going to do just that. This new feature, as spotted by Jane Manchun Wong, is called Nearby Friends, and the main use for it would involve making it so that friends can share their locations with each other. This is similar to what Snapchat has had for a very long time, with people that are connected through the social network able to see each other’s current locations, and it seems like Facebook is incorporating this in order to take more of Snapchat’s edge away.

There is going to be a lot more to the Nearby Friends feature than just being able to see your friends’ locations however. The nearby places and events features are also going to be incorporated into this feature, thereby giving you a centralized location from which you would be able to find each and every thing that is going on in your vicinity. Not only would you be able to see what events are occurring near you but you would also be able to find restaurants, clubs, theaters and all kinds of other locations close to you as well. This can be particularly useful for someone that is moving to a new locale and wants to find things that they would be able to do in these areas.

Overall this feature will prove to be quite useful, although it’s important to note that you probably won’t be able to use it until and unless you allow Facebook to always access your location. If you only let the platform access your location when you use the app then this feature is not going to be available to you, which is something that might just put some people off it no matter what benefits it provides.

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