Facebook Messenger’s Location Sharing
Location sharing has been really beneficial for my friends and I during our time in college and post-grad. Common scenarios for us include: a friend moves to a new city and wants a deeper sense of security walking back from the subway, someone going to happy hour with a new group of work friends, etc. While we do not have Find My Friends Sharing activated 24/7 between us, we still desired a solution that would allow us to share our location for specific scenarios.
Enter Facebook Messenger location sharing. I’m not sure how many users actually know about this feature since it’s buried under a thousand other features that Facebook wants to cram into Messenger, but it’s there when you tap the “+” next to the camera button.
What I like most about is that it’s a) it’s inline and within the context of the conversation, b) temporary, and c) cross-platform. The common sequence of events is that a friend will let me know in the chat what their plans are and then enable location sharing with a preview showing up in-line of our chat. There’s no need to leave the conversation to check that it’s on and working like I would have to in iMessage. Since it’s only for an hour, we appreciate that our phone batteries won’t drain with GPS being used for long durations. Messenger being cross-platform also makes it really easy for iPhone and non-iPhone friends to use it.
So next time you’re looking for a quick way to share your location with a friend, I recommend you open up Facebook Messenger.
