Facebook has confirmed that they are working on a redesign of their Nearby Friends feature that was first introduced in 2015 that shows your friend’s locations on a map, a snap-chat-like feature. In the last few years, we have seen Facebook rip apart Snapchat in a bid to make its service almost as perfect as the ephemeral picture-sharing app, and this time, it is trying to bring forth its ‘nearby friends’ feature.
As confirmed by Facebook, the new take on Nearby Friends will replace the list view of the neighborhoods and cities that your friends are in, replacing it with a map view. Your friends’ lists are still visible, but the main focus appears to be on the new map view.
We’re testing a new design for Nearby Friends, a tool people have used for the past four years to meet with their friends in person. – Facebook to TechCrunch
The redesign of the Nearby Friends feature is meant to encourage users to share their locations so that Facebook can target them with ads, but that’s probably just one of the many reasons behind Facebook’s move.
The basic difference between the two apps is; that whereas Snap Map means that you can see extremely particular pal places, the Facebook location sharing characteristic solely means that you can see approximate info.
As TechCrunch reports, the revamped feature is in its testing phase, yet it is unclear how many users have been selected for the new feature testing. Well, if you already have the new feature, I hope it worked really great.
