To boost its mobile app further, Facebook has come up with a new app to keep track of your location
Facebook has released a new feature for its mobile app that will track the user’s phone location to dig up information about the places they visit. With its new app, Facebook is invading the territory largely dominated by Yelp and Foursquare.
How Place Tips work
The app called Place Tips draws on posts from the place’s page and from the user’s friends. When users visit a location where their friends have been before, the Facebook app will show related photos and posts. For instance, if a user visits a restaurant, a business page will show popular menu items and upcoming events, along with friends’ photos of a favorite dish in the restaurant.
“To better show you this content at just the right place and time, today we’re launching a new feature called place tips,” reads a Facebook blog post. “Place tips will show you fun, useful and relevant info about the place you’re at.”
Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) has kept Place Tips as an optional feature, and the tips will appear only for those who have allowed the social networking app to access their location. New York will be the first location to get this app, and Facebook will start testing it with the help of cell networks, Wi-Fi and GPS to track the location of the user. The network will keep the location information of the user secure, and for now, the feature has been ported only to the iPhone.
Facebook going step by step
Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) is using every trick to make sure users stick to its mobile app. The Mark Zuckerberg-led company is striving to give a more personalized look to the Facebook page of every user and increase mobile traffic. Approximately 84% of 890 million daily users visit Facebook through a mobile phone, claims the social networking company.
Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) is going one step at a time. In April, users were allowed to see stories about their friends and what were they up to, and then in November, it launched Place Pages to create a database of businesses and activities for users.
Facebook (NASDAQ:FB)has plans to roll out the new app to all users but did not give any update on when it will bring the new feature to Android-powered devices.
