Facebook to rip off another Snapchat feature in a bid to revive 'Nearby Friends'

Facebook’s habit of ripping off features from Snapchat isn’t new and as per what new reports reveal, it isn’t a habit which is dying off soon.

Facebook ‘ Nearby Friends ’ feature never really took off the way it was intended to and in a bid to revive it, Facebook seems to be planning on copying Snapchat’s location sharing feature, referred to as Snap Map. For the uninitiated, the feature basically allows users to opt-in to sharing their location and have it displayed on a map for followers to see. How Snap Map works is instead of your name or a boring image of you being plot on a map, it features a Bitmoji of you, making it look much more appealing.

As reported by TechCrunch, Facebook is working on a fresh interface for its ‘Nearby Friends’ feature that would display the location of people on a map. Currently, Facebook’s location-sharing feature simply displays a list of friends, broken down by “nearby” and other locations.

There are minute differences here though when compared side-by-side. While Snap Maps allows users to see a friend’s specific location, Nearby Friends only allows you to see approximate information such as cities or broader geographical locations.

Talking to the publication, Facebook confirmed testing the new interface and stated, “We’re testing a new design for Nearby Friends, a tool people have used for the past four years to meet with their friends in person. People have complete control over whether to use Nearby Friends or not. They can turn it on in the Nearby Friends bookmark.”

While the new interface does look better, the biggest issue here still remains the lack of trust people have with Facebook when it comes to disclosing any kind of data. Hence, we do feel that ‘Nearby Friends’ will continue to remain as a feature that no one uses but for the few who still use it, the new interface does look much more pleasing than a boring list of people’s names.