Facebook is coming up with new features next month. And according to NYT Bits Blog, the feature will allow users to share their location. Location-based social networking is now grabbing a huge number of users like Gowalla and Foursquare. And probably, Facebook noticed it and decided to offer the same location-based services.
Facebook plans to take the wraps off a new location-based feature in late April at f8, the company’s yearly developer conference, according to several people briefed on the project, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss unannounced services.
Facebook does offer the following details:
- Facebook plans to announce the feature at the Facebook developer conference f8 in April.
- It will offer users the ability to share information with friends as well as provide developers with APIs to bring in location info from other services.
- Facebook wants to target small business advertisers.
- Because of that strategy, Facebook thinks its competition is Google rather than Loopt, Foursquare and Gowalla.
In preparation for the introduction, Facebook updated its privacy policy last November. The new policy states: “When you share your location with others or add a location to something you post, we treat that like any other content you post.”
Facebook has been working on a location-based tool for close to a year, but decided to wait until the product was completely ready for mainstream adoption before announcing it, said the people with knowledge of the project.
Meredith Chin, a Facebook spokeswoman, said Tuesday that the company wasn’t ready to discuss any possible location-based features. “We’re constantly experimenting with new things around here, but we don’t have any details to share right now,” she said in an e-mail message.
It’s too early to tell whether which of the location-based services will this new Facebook kill. Although according to the report, Facebook is not really eyeing any of these startups but rather a bigger competitor – Google with its small-business advertising program powered by Google Latitude.
