Facebook launches Nearby Friends | Hacker News Reader

Facebook launches Nearby Friends

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58 pointsandreavaccari42 comments

While this seems like a really cool idea, I have a feeling that this is the sort of feature that everyone will enable at first, and then one single bad event will cause them to disable it forever.

I'm sure everyone has told a "white lie" at some point (e.g. "Sorry, I can't really hang out tonight because I'm not feeling well" == "I want to go see a movie by myself"), and anything that might hinder your ability to do that is likely to be disabled permanently the first time it causes an issue (or even in anticipation of it causing an issue).

It's weird because they've had a feature similar to this before. It was under a tab called "Nearby" or something in their left navigation. If I remember correctly it was web only but a user could access it on their phones through the mobile site. I liked it. It wasn't as one-to-one as this iteration of it though. It would only show you where someone recently checked-in. It was quite accurate though.

It eventually just went away. I wonder why they got rid of that, but now are doing something like this.

I remember this feature. I also remember that hardly anyone of my friends used checking in so it was fairly useless :)

While most posts are touching on privacy or failure cases, I am still struggling to understand this product from a social perspective. First of all, this general idea has been floating around since companies like loopt, when mobile started taking off. I remember working through the use case considerations for this kind of product, and that's where it really dies.

This breed of product is based on the idea that location = event. If someone is at a location, that means something is going on. But it ignores massive implicit social constructs: 1. Facebook friends are not real friends (Circles is slightly better but classification is onerous), 2. Someone you don't know well is unlikely to share their location to you, and less likely to agree to hang out based on location, in contrast someone you do know well, you will easily be aware of their location and availability.

The reality is that this product captures one piece of information - where is my friend right now. But on any serious reflection, you should be able to discern that this piece of information is incredibly secondary to the nature of the actual relationship when determining whether or not to hang out.

One place I can see this being useful is at music festivals or other large open-area events. Often you're going with other people, but you're not necessarily going to stick together the entire time. Being able to find each other easily would be a nice improvement, as phone-tag is a pretty terrible way to do it.

Some of my best friends have moved to different parts of the country. And because of the distance, we simply talk less. But whenever we do meet up, it's like they never left.

Just because I don't talk to someone on a weekly basis doesn't mean I wouldn't want to meet up if it were convenient.

I can see both sides of this coin. On the one hand, the positive use case is actually pretty helpful -- I _would_ like to know if I'm at a bar and, for example, some friends are in the back that I might have otherwise missed.

But on the flipside, this has the potential to turn a lot of social situations slightly sticky -- I immediately think back to a friend's "worst date ever" story where she was asked out by a guy who later cancelled because "work stuff came up". And then she ran into him, drunk, with his buddies, at the same bar.

At least before FB he could have hidden under a table! ;)

It might be interesting if they could add some kind of geofencing feature to it. So you could have it automatically be enabled when you're hanging out at the bar you go to when you want to see friends, but be disabled otherwise. It's good that they let you turn it on and off whenever you want, but having to do so manually seems like a chore that will cause me to just leave it off all the time.

Creating a whitelist sounds a bit tedious. Because it might look fun at first, you would add a few places, but then forget it forever, don't update them and the feature would slowly die.

Blacklist makes more sense. E.g. I don't want people to know where exactly do I live. Or automatic disabling at specific dates, e.g. during the weekend.

Yeah, good point.

Will this be smart enough to not tell me every time my friends who live next door to me are nearby?

I can imagine sitting at a bar with friends and getting notifications on my phone that they are nearby.

Geolocation features aside, I'm more impressed by the fact that Facebook has created something that's opt-in rather than volunteering people right off the bat.

I remember google latitude had this feature years ago and I thought it was really cool, but they killed it because people complained about it.

I thought it was neat to be out at some family event or the mall etc. and get notices that your friends were nearby.

It's still there in Google+, under locations.

Maybe I remember them switching it from opt-out to opt-in then? Did that ever happen?

I kind of wish it was opt-out by default, but I know that would probably cause a huge controversy. People are already collecting your location data anyway - might as well use it with your friends/people you'd actually want to have it.

Yeah I think that happened around the time they started sharing data between products. It's hella useful when it comes down to it (and you can be quite restrictive with your location in G+).

I remember I used to get notifications when people checked into places near me on Facebook.

I created a similar service a while back at http://www.nearbyfriends.com. Here is a video describing the launch: http://vimeo.com/15039067. I later added proximity alerts so you could see when your Facebook friends check in near you. Funny to see Facebook launch a similar "Nearby Friends" three years later.

I live in the northern suburbs of Atlanta, about 30 miles from the center. I have a local group of friends that I get together with on a weekly basis. But this feature seems like it might help me see my city-based friends on a more regular basis. Times that I drive into the city, or fly to other metro areas for conferences and meetings, I'd love to know if I have FB friends nearby to meet up with.

What about automatically chatting with ANYONE nearby you that is using the app and "available" for chat?

I think this will be a good idea.

Imagine you in traffic, and launch the app to chat with the driver in the car side yours... The same could works when you go to party and don't try to find somebody "available" there....

This, for Facebook, should be easy, right?

Spott ( https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/spott/id591300005 ) is exactly what you're talking about.

It's basically nearby anyone, with the connection being a location instead of a phone number, email, username, etc... They have done a good job at keeping the content focused on useful information, rather than dick pics.

The downside is it really only has a strong user-base in Chicago.

Great app! And really nice job with useful information instead of simple chat.

After remember that Twitter have already an "location flag" when you tweet from mobile, I did a search for something that use it, and found it: http://nearbytweets.com/

It seems that this is the same idea with Twitter users...that is also interesting

Thanks! We're working on Twitter integration with our next release (1.2.2). Twitter's streaming API opens up a lot of cool new features for us to add.

do you are from Spott team? Great!

I think improve it with twitter integration will be great. And, maybe, let an optional "public chat" (without images and with flood control) maybe let it more 'popular'

if you want to discuss more feedback feel free to found me on me at dougcorrea.com

The problem I see with this at large events such as rock concerts is the speed messages come in with. In just small group chats of 5 or 6 friends sometimes everyone sends so many messages that I can't keep up. What happens at a rock concert when you have hundreds of messages coming in? Will people even read them or take the time to scroll up to see past comments? At that point it basically becomes impossible to carry on conversations.

You are right, but maybe if user could filter messages based on other user profile could works.

I saw this nearby chat being used for the same people that today uses things like tinder, chatroullete and so on. BUT, images should not be allowed in "public" chat and also auto-flood protection (like that old irc channels)...

Do you think it should work to avoid mess with many messages?

Do you seriously think that wouldn't just turn into a chatroulette insta-dong service?

Actually the idea is to turn in it!

I think today one of most "popular" whatsapp feature is group message. Now imagine "localizated" group message formed automatically!

When you go to a Rock concert it will be possible to chat with everyone there, make new friends, chat privately and so on...

Actually it will be: chatroullete + whatsapp + tinder + Facebook Nearby :)

Maybe I should put this idea on IndieGoGo...

I'll wait for some feedbacks where first...them maybe I create an campaign there :)

Right, group messaging for people you know. I don't see anonymous group messaging as anything other than weird political blasting, anonymous dick pics and an outlet for road rage.

You also shouldn't be on facebook when you're driving.

I understand your point, but I'm curious how tinder, chatroullete and other forms to chat with unknown people are so popular?

I think it could be a great thing. In a stadium, for example, it should be interesting for some people. And better that, in parties, obviously. But what we'll receive as perk to contribute on IndieGoGo? =)

The problem with this type of integration in such a widespread app is that it can become problematic to explain to someone, like a significant other, why you would have a need to not share your location with them. It can be difficult to counter the "what do you have to hide" line of reasoning.

Not bad, I think this will end games of phone tag where people mention vague landmarks for friends at large events.

Due to Facebook's usage, I think this will take off. No need to convince friends unsuccessfully to install another app.

Eventually Glancee [1] see the light! Congrats guys ;)

[1] http://www.glancee.com

Tencent's QQ and Wechat IM services have been doing this for a long while, both are very popular. Nice catch up FB.

The folks who recently poured millions into connect.com are NOT going to be happy about this.

Not really related, but does anyone know why newsroom.fb.com is running on WordPress?

because they don't want to reinvent the wheel?

I would prefer that my nearby friends not be launched anywhere.

An invasion on privacy for those people whom FB can trick into activating the feature.

Haha, there goes your privacy to Facebook's advertisers.

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