When Facebook began testing its new Neighborhoods feature in Canada last October amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the tech giant described it as a dedicated place for people to connect with their local communities.
Here, in a corner of the world's largest social network, people met neighbors, shared banana bread ingredients, helped locate missing cats and swapped local business recommendations, the feature's product manager Reid Patton said in a recent interview.
But Facebook, which is rolling out the feature in four U.S. cities — Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Charlotte, North Carolina; Newark, New Jersey; and San Diego — is already playing catch-up in the red-hot market for local social apps. Community site Nextdoor has emerged as a key player along with Amazon Ring's Neighbors and crime-tracking app Citizen. Nextdoor, which saw usage surge during lockdowns, reported 50% annual growth in daily active users last year.