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Guardian |
Location marking is becoming an increasingly sought-after feature in the
tech world. Facebook flirted with it with their check-in feature and
now they've brought Messenger into the mix. On Monday, they added a
feature which enables you to share you location live for up to an hour.
Judging from what Facebook's reps have been saying about it, the main
aim is to allow people to indicate how far away they are from a meeting
place, indicate that a meeting place has changed or anything else along
those lines. You have to choose which friends you share your location
with, and once that's done they can track you for the full 60 minutes.
This comes only a week after Google announced that they were adding a
similar feature to Maps. Apple also have a similar service tied to their
in-house messaging app. Facebook won't be able to edge out either of
them as far as the location technology is concerned, but on the
messaging side, they're miles ahead.
Being able to share your location with basically everyone you've ever
met (and some people you haven't) could have a myriad of different uses
beyond just making sure you're both going to the right pub. Say, for
example, a friend messages you to say that they're in a dangerous
situation and need you to come and help, if they can share their exact
location for an hour, it could make all the difference.
Sharing your location is easy, all you have to do is select the location
icon. On the mobile app, it's in the 'More' menu, which is indicated by
a '...' icon. That will show you where you are on a map, and then you
can press a button on the bottom of the screen to share, and again to
stop sharing. A little countdown clock icon indicates how much time you
have left. You may have to go into the app settings and turn location
services on.
You can also share a static location, but that feature has been
available for some time now. You can activate it from the same page,
simply by pressing the 'send' button on the top corner of the screen.
The Live Location update is officially out, but depending on where you
are in the world, it might be a few days yet before it becomes
available.
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