Facebook's 'things in common' feature lets you make friends with strangers

Facebook is testing a new feature called 'things in common'. If you are on Facebook, chances are that you've come across various strangers online, through groups, events or just friends of friends. Now, the social network giant wants you to extend your friend list further by letting you talk to strangers that have 'things in common'.

A report from CNET suggests that the feature is currently being tested in US. When asked about the future prospects of the new feature the company did not mention any specific plans of a roll out.

How does it work?

When you generally go through Facebook posts or profiles, there's a person who has something common like same school/college/company or even a Facebook group. "Knowing shared things in common helps people connect," a Facebook spokeswoman said in a statement. "We're testing adding a 'things in common' label that will appear above comments from people who you're not friends with but you might have something in common with."

The availability of this new feature is still limited to a small group of people but could come to general public once it is out of beta testing. The new feature seems to be an extension of suggested friends where the platform suggests new profiles on the basis of mutual friends.

However, rising concerns of privacy can act as dampener for the new feature. The spokesperson confirmed in the report that only publicly available data will be shared with people you have 'things in common'.

During the F8 Conference, earlier this year, the company also announced a dating feature that will be introduced on the platform. The social network promised that the user will have control over who can look at their dating profile.

The dating feature is currently being tested internally by Facebook employees. This is being done to rid the platform of the major bugs before it is made available for public testing.

The feature will help Facebook increase engagement on their platform. With nuanced social media brands like Instagram and Snapchat increasing their engagement on a much faster pace, the company has been trying to compete by introducing a host of new features.