Over 750 million people visit Facebook daily, and now the social network wants to make sure you don’t miss your friends while out on the town.
Today, Facebook announced a new “Nearby Friends” feature, which relies off a phone’s GPS to determine one’s location. You can see all your friends nearby, and receive push notifications when a friend is in your area.
The feature is completely optional, so privacy advocates need not freak out, and you can choose to share your location with friends, close friends or a specific list of friends.
“Sharing your location with Nearby Friends goes two ways — you and your friends both have to turn on Nearby Friends and choose to share with each other to see when you’re nearby. Your friends will only be able to see that you’re nearby if you share this info with them and vice versa.”
To help friends better find you, you can share your precise location for a set period of time, but also just let them know that you’re as close as a half mile away.
For as long as the feature is turned on, Facebook friends will be able to see your location, so if you want to go MIA, you’ll need to access your settings to turn it back off.
Nearby Friends is available on iOS and Android, and Facebook says it will rollout “over the coming weeks” in the United States.
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