Product Design: A Facebook Feed That Helps People Discover Venues Near Them

You are a product manager at Meta. Design a new feed in Facebook that helps people discover businesses near them, such as bars and coffee shops. Explain whom the feed is for and which problems it solves, what appears in it and how it is ranked, which version you would build first, and how you would measure success. ```hint What does Facebook know? Map and review apps already answer "where is the nearest coffee shop?". Think about which local decisions they handle poorly, and what Facebook has that they lack, before deciding what goes into each item of the feed. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Is this a separate tab or destination inside Facebook, or a section mixed into the existing main feed? - Which businesses are in scope: food and drink places like the examples, or every kind of local business, such as gyms and salons? - What is the main goal: engagement with local content, more visits for local businesses, or new advertising revenue from them? - Should the first version target dense cities with many venues, or also smaller towns where listings are sparse? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - Why Meta would build this, and a clear goal for the feed. - Target users and the decision moments the feed serves, with a chosen focus and its specific pain points, plus what the businesses need. - What a feed item contains, where the content comes from, the ranking signals, and how the feed works where data is sparse. - A prioritized first version and what is deferred. - A primary success metric with guardrails for location privacy, listing accuracy and engagement with the main feed. ### Follow-up Questions - Many small venues have Facebook Pages that are outdated or inactive. How do you keep the feed accurate? - Showing that friends visited a place builds trust but reveals where people go. How do you handle that? - Why would someone open this feed instead of a map app, and how would you test whether they do?