A new mobile application will be available in the coming weeks, which will allow the users of the largest social network to view their friends on a map. Do you really think your friends know where you are at any moment? According to Bloomberg, Facebook is working on a new application which is due to be launched mid-March. With this tool, users can monitor in real-time the geographic location of their friends who also use the application. On the model of “Friends” on Apple devices or “Latitude” from Google, the app will show the position of the contacts on a map.
The social network already recorded the GPS coordinates of its users, who can, using the functionality of “Places”, indicate where they are when posting a new status, like Foursquare. On a mobile device, “Nearby Places” functionality also offers the opportunity to discover what has been liked by friends (restaurants, shops) near the place where you are.
The social network extends its mobile presence
The purpose of the new application is to continue to track the location of the user, without being permanently open on the mobile phone. Geolocation data and more broadly the daily habits of users definitely are a point of interest for advertisers who can disseminate targeted advertising, Bloomberg suggests.
Facebook already has over a billion users on smartphones. Besides its main application, it has four other main apps: Camera and Instagram for photos, Messenger and Poke for messaging. Recently, Mark Zuckenberg said about the social networking strategy: ” A lot of what we had to do last year was simply to improve our mobile development process. The next thing we’re going to do is get really good at building new mobile-first experiences”.
Facebook’s terms of service reveal that it uses data “to tell you and your friends about people or events nearby, or offer deals to you that you might be interested in.”
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