Facebook Quietly Introduces Hyperlocal Services Website In India

Facebook has introduced a local services website in India to help customers discover the best-rated service providers in their vicinity.

Users can opt for services including arts & marketing, automotive, business services, financial services, event planning, home improvement, lifestyle, medical & health, pet services, and spa, beauty and personal care by logging on to facebook.com/services.

The website works on the hyperlocal model, where services are catered to a local geographical area, and lets vendors upload their business details through their Facebook page.

The site has been under pilot since November 2015, and lets users rate and review a given service.

The development was first reported by ET. In an emailed response to Inc42, Facebook spokesperson said, “We’re in the early stages of testing a way for people to easily find more Pages for the services they’re interested in.”

Currently, Facebook has over 2 Mn SMEs using its platform and the hyperlocal services market is a segment that is seeing increasing competition. This move is contemplated as a threat to competitors like UrbanClap, QuikrServices, Housejoy, etc. who are neither as big as Facebook nor have a user base like it.

Also, last year in December, Wall Street Journal had reported that Facebook had launched a services platform in the United States, to go against service providers such as Yelp, Angie’s List, Amazon, Alphabet, and LinkedIn.

Last year, Facebook had been in a lot of controversies after it introduced Internet.org in India. There had been massive net neutrality debates and public outrage. Amidst the debate, Facebook had opened its free Internet access site Internet.org in May 2105, for online content and application developers to join their service.

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