While I was in Mumbai last week, I saw a new feature on Facebook which notified me of Facebook friends who are from Mumbai. I recently saw a right hand side bar on Facebook which notified me about all my friends in Mumbai. I tried to replicate the same after I came back to Bhubaneswar but I could not get it back again. But a recent article by Josh Constine of Inside Facebook reveals that Facebook has recently began showing a “Friends in [City]” sidebar module to users who have shifted their current location temporarily to a new one.

From what it seems to me, the new feature works when a user logs in from an IP address of a city which is different than the one from where he logs in regularly. I was in Mumbai when the feature was shown to me but, after coming back to Bhubaneswar I have not seen it. The friends who are suggested, are shown not based on their current IP but, the city they have listed in the “Lives in” field on Facebook. With our Facebook network spreading beyond boundaries, a feature that helps you keep tab on which of your friends are in a new location that you are visiting, is an added feature. It would stimulate a conversation or even help organise meetups. This adds more value to having a Facebook account with your friends in it. Thus, giving the social network even more users.

The feature shows up at the top right of the site, so keep an eye out for it when you log into Facebook while you are out of town. You might get a recommendation from the social network to connect with a distant friend.

Have you seen the “Friends in [City]” feature? What’s your take on it?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 6th, 2011 at 4:07 pm and is filed under Ajatus. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.