“He specifically said I should tell other people about it,” he told me in an email. The feature has not been officially launched, but it is live and visible for those seeking it out.

We first heard about the service from developer Roger Pincombe, who himself got the info from a Facebook developer at the Angelhack event going on this weekend: Facebook is a title sponsor, and at the San Francisco event (Angelhack’s taking place also in Seattle, Boston and NYC), and one of its engineers was on site showing off how the app worked with developers. It is not clear if Friendshake has been created out of that acquisition, or if it has been developed along an altogether different thread - or how the functions of the two may eventually dovetail. The service comes a little under two months after Facebook announced the acquisition of Glancee, a mobile app that helps users discover people near them with similar interests, whose three founders have now joined Facebook and closed down their app. Update: it’s accessible via Facebook’s mobile apps, too (see below the break for more details, including comments from the developer). And, in keeping with Facebook’s emphasis on being as ubiquitous as possible, for now it’s not being delivered in a native app, but via the mobile web.

Currently Initially called “ Friendshake” and also accessible through a URL that is the abbreviation of “find friends nearby” (), it’s another step in Facebook furthering its reach into mobile, and creating services to meet new people - rather than building up more connectivity with the ones you already know. Facebook has created a new feature that lets users find friends and potential friends nearby.

Find people near me