Gadgetory

no one showed up to your birthday party Facebook wants to help you track down those jerks I'm Ross Miller and this is 90 seconds on the verge Facebook today has begun rolling out a new opt-in feature for iOS and Android called nearby friends which as the name suggests is all about seeing which of your friends are close by this kind of social discovery is far from a new idea in fact several years ago it was something of a trend with apps like highlight sonar and glance II they didn't catch on one reason was technology more specifically battery life that's a simpler thing to fix and one that Facebook believes will not be an issue this time the bigger issue however was social people don't wanna share their exact locations because well it's creepy that's why nearby friends is instead focusing on approximate locations like neighborhoods the users can then choose to share the precise location with a specific friend after a few clicks nearby friend is a bit of a change in strategy for Facebook which has lately been breaking its services apart into standalone apps like paper for news and messenger for chat Facebook clearly thinks that this is a defining feature but it's also conflicted about how exactly to integrated and that confusion echoes Facebook's larger problem it isn't just the nearby part that's concern is also Facebook's very broad definition of friends facebook also seems to know this and has designed nearby friends with curated lists in mind ok so let's say you do activate nearby friends you curate a list you get all your buddies to do the same a day today do you really want an app actively tracking your location every 15 minutes for more on Facebook check out the verge coming up myspace unveils its own people discovery service