Submission + - Facebook's Nearby Friends: Location-based Advertising is Next Frontier (ibtimes.co.uk)
While some in the industry are calling the new feature "creepy", Nearby Friends potentially gives Facebook a chance to better monetise its mobile app, an area where the company has so far failed to profit.
Location-based advertising, whereby consumers are geo-located to receive messages about offers and discounts directly to their smartphones as they walk down a high street, could be the answer.
"The challenge of location-based advertising is that it has to be very targeted. Facebook is a general social platform so different age groups use it in different ways. Twitter is the same," Alys Woodward, IDC's research director for European big data and social business tells IBTimes UK.
"In the past, Facebook have pushed the boundaries of privacy and then turn around and say, 'Oh, you don't like it?', and then roll [it] back. Since Whatsapp will never give them users' data, Facebook is now getting users to opt in.
"Despite their vast revenue, they do have to evolve to survive [as] Facebook sponsored ads haven't been successful."