Facebook continues to see itself as more than just a social platform for people to share posts, pictures and videos. Today, Facebook announced a Yelp like feature called Recommendations that users can opt-in to.
“When you write a Facebook post looking for advice on local places or services, you’ll have the option to turn on Recommendations for that post,” notes Facebook in their blog announcement. “If you turn on the feature, your friends can comment on your post with suggestions, and you’ll see all of them mapped out and saved in one place. You can also go to your Recommendations bookmark on Facebook to ask a new question or help your friends.”
The idea is that as people are sharing their experiences on Facebook they often ask for advice such as where to eat the best Chinese food or who knows a good accountant. Facebook’s Recommendations tool helps facilitate connections and organize answers from your friends. Basically, competing with Yelp and other local recommendation platforms.
“Whether traveling to a new place, looking for a hair salon, or searching for the perfect place to eat, people already turn to their friends, family, and local Groups on Facebook for advice,” says Facebook. “We’re rolling out a new tool that makes it easier to get and organize all those recommendations in one place.”
What Facebook is actually doing is taking the advice questions they are seeing by the millions each day and as friends answer, adding an additional widget of information about the business.
They will then map and categorize all of your friends recommendations:
“We’ll put all your friend’s recommendations on your own customized map so you can find everything easily,” says Facebook.