Facebook has introduced a new feature for its growing base of mobile users which will let people know when their friends are nearby via smartphone notifications .

Consumers can customise the tool, called Nearby Friends, to see a certain group of people for a set period of time, or turn it off completely, the California-based company said today in a blog post. Friends will need to have the feature turned on in order to be seen.

Nearby Friends is Facebook’s latest move into location- sharing capabilities. The world’s biggest social network has added the ability for its more than 1.2 billion members to check into places as they would on Foursquare’s mobile application.

Facebook also has acquired Glancee, a location- tracking startup, and Gowalla, a location-based social network.

Bloomberg