Facebook Messenger Ditches Constant Mapping To Lay Groundwork For More Location Features

Facebook is ditching the confusing, slightly creepy always-on location sharing feature in Messenger for a more explicit, one-time way to share where you are or will be. Location will no longer be a “second class citizen”, Messenger Head Of Product Stan Chudnovsky tells me. Instead, Messenger has big plans for GPS features, saying “What we’re launching is the foundation of everything that’s coming.”

For example, “You might want to make reservations. How are we all getting there? Maybe there’s a transportation service somehow” Chudnovsky hints. When I ask if Messenger might build on Uber’s API to let you instantly book rides, he coyly replied “I didn’t say that, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like what you’re saying.”

No More Marauders Map

Unfortunately for Facebook’s public image, the elimination of the toggleable, persistent location sharing feature comes just two weeks too late. A Harvard computer science student recently built a Chrome extension that automatically logs the constant location data sent by friends with it turned on in Messenger to create a “Maruaders Map”. It’s named after the Harry Potter map that shows where people are.

The extension riled privacy fears even though it’s pretty benign considering people volunteer to turn on the location info, and it’s only sent alongside messages to your friends. Facebook had already been working on today’s update for the last three months, well before the Marauders Map release, though some will surely call it’s launch a knee-jerk backtrack.

Sharing When You Want To

The new design for location sharing in Messenger eliminates the blue arrow and any way to constantly share your coordinates. It’s replaced with a pin button alongside those for sending photos, stickers, or money. Tapping it pulls up a map with your current location pinned, which you can send to friends with one more tap. This makes it easy to tell a friend “Here’s where I am, come meet me.”

By dragging the map, you can change the pin’s location. That lets you pick a meetup spot. You can also use suggestion of nearby Facebook Places like local businesses, or search for one to set the pin to a specific destination.

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