We said this was coming. Facebook is introducing a feature called “Nearby Friends”, which we guarantee will be used more for the sake of avoiding people you know but don’t like, than actually finding people you want to see.
The feature taps into the steady stream of geolocation data piped from your Facebook app, and presents it in real time to the people you want to show it to. That’s right. In a break from usual protocol, Facebook will not enable Nearby Friends by default.
If you do join in the fun, bear in mind that this is an amazing marketing data mining tool for Facebook:
If you turn on the Nearby Friends feature, Facebook starts collecting data on your exact location and keeps details on where you’ve been in the past, not just places where you’ve used its app to check in. It also collects location information even when the Facebook app is closed.
[Source : CNN]
