Facebook Set To Bring In "Things In Common" Feature

Facebook is experimenting with a new feature called "Things in Common" that highlights details you have in common with your friends' friends.

It's not clear how long the company has been testing the feature or if it plans to make it more widely available, but it offers an intriguing look at how Facebook is looking to boost users' interactions with one another. 

The feature appears in a small box underneath a friend's friend list on desktop, along with a prompt to "see what you have in common with" that individual's friends.

After you click in, it opens a full-screen window where you can flip through that person's friend list. As you flip through, it shows some basic profile information and highlights details you may have in common.

Mutual friends, hometown, employers, and current city were a few of the "things in common" highlighted to me. It also surfaced pages we had both liked.

Here's what it looked like when I looked at my colleague Brett Williams' friend list.

It's not clear how Facebook ranks which friends you see first in this view. The first few profiles I saw were people with whom I had other mutual friends besides Brett, but who I don't actually know. Then, perhaps not surprisingly, I started to see Mashable colleagues, which makes sense because we have a high number of mutual friends and follow several of the same pages.

Interestingly, it also showed me the profiles of people who I am also connected with on Facebook, so it didn't discriminate whether or not we were already connected. It also highlighted mutual friends with whom I had very little in common with. I didn't try, but it seemed like I could flip through his entire 1,000+ friend list in this view, which doesn't seem particularly useful.

It also felt a little creepy to spend so much time lurking on the friends lists of my friends — isn't this part of why I deleted the Facebook app from my phone in the first place, I wondered.

"'Things In Common' is a section we're testing that contains information that you share in common with someone else, such as mutual friends, page likes, and others. These respect the privacy setting that the profile owner set when entering them," a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement.

It's no secret Facebook is always looking for new ways to get people to interact with each other, so it's not surprising they'd be exploring yet another avenue for connecting people who aren't yet friends. 

Mark Zuckerberg himself has made it clear this is an area he is intently focused on.

"I think there's something to this idea that your relationships shape your path more than we realize," he wrote earlier this year.

"We've built AI systems to recommend 'People You May Know.' But it might be just as important to also connect you with people you should know — mentors and people outside your circle who care about you and can provide a new source of support and inspiration."

Of course, identifying basic things you have in common with mutual friends is hardly the same as Facebook helping you find someone outside your circle who actually cares about you, but it could be one step toward helping people identify new people they might want to connect with.