Aug 10
19

Facebook Places and the Future of Location-Based Services

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Facebook PlacesSo woohoo, Facebook finally announced their location-based service (you can watch a recording of the live stream here), called Facebook Places, yesterday at a conference/launch-party at the Facebook Palo Alto headquarters. A couple quick highlights from the presenters:

  • Places functionality is similar to existing LBSs
    • “Checking in”
    • “Here now”
    • “Friends Nearby”
  • Location Pages
    • By creating a location to checkin to, you’re creating a unique page on Facebook
    • Kind of like a Foursquare venue, kind of like a Facebook Community page?
  • Privacy settings are addressed right off the bat
  • This is not a game
    • Facebook stressed that Places doesn’t have any gaming elements
    • There aren’t any badges or stamps to collect and there are no points
    • It’s purely about connecting people IRL
  • You don’t necessarily need a smart phone to participate
    • An iPhone user can checkin other Facebook friends whom they are currently with using the @ symbol
    • The checkin will appear on that friend’s wall, so long as they’ve “allowed” it (Notifications?)
    • You can only checkin friends, and you can only check them into the place you’re currently at
  • That’s right: iPhone only
    • Currently the Places update is only for iPhone users
    • No date has been given for Android and Blackberry upgrades
  • Facebook Places syncs with other main LBSs
    • Foursquare, Gowalla, MyTown, and Yelp are all partners
    • Checkins on the various services can be shared on Facebook
    • Badges, stamps, etc will transfer between services
    • Yelp Monocle will also display friends who have checked in
  • Fuzzy GPS
    • Just like the other LBS, you can checkin to places that you’re not currently in
    • Seems like this is unavoidable until the phones’ GPS gets more precise
    • People will cheat
  • API access
    • Developers can access the Read API as of today (Aug 19)
      • Allows you to see your own checkins and friends’ checkins
    • Access to the Write and Search APIs will be available next week
      • Write API allows you to checkin
      • Search API allows you to find nearby places

So the positives of Facebook Places are that it functions similarly to the other LBSs, which means a low-barrier to entry for current users; you can checkin friends who may not have smart phones; there are lots of opt-ins and privacy controls; and the largest LBS are already partnering up. The negatives? Facebook Places currently only for the iPhone, it’s currently only in the US, and that it carries over the same problems with imprecise GPS and cheating possibilities as other services. Oh and that it’s not introducing anything groundbreaking, despite the way that the developers were talking about it at the launch-party.

The biggest takeaway for Facebook Places is the enormous opportunity. Currently, 99% of Facebook users have never used a LBS, so this instantly exposing 148,500,000* people (*only 30% of Facebook users are in the US)  to the exciting world of geolocation.

How will businesses take advantage of the location pages that get created for their businesses when people checkin on Facebook? How will they leverage these three APIs that Facebook is giving developers access to? How will geolocation and location-based services change now that the biggest player in the game is involved? And ::gasp:: how will Google respond?? Will it be Latitude-Me integration? Businesses need to get their head in the geolocation game, and fast. It’s only a matter of time before Facebook Places opens up to all smart-phones across the globe.

What do you think of the new Facebook Places? Let’s chat in the comments!

Tags: facebook, geolocation, lbs, mobile, places

This entry was posted on August 19, 2010 at 1:41 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted in social networks by Jed 1 Comment

1 Response to "Facebook Places and the Future of Location-Based Services"

  • Prince of Prussia says:
    August 20, 2010 at 10:19 am
    Reply

    So Facebook has introduced their own LBS. Personally I find it uncompelling and underwhelming. Since I have an iPhone, I can actually USE facebook places right now (maybe now Android users will get over their superiority complex for a minute). I have a few opinions on the service. I like my Facebook Wall to be about actual communication… Actual status updates and actual conversations with my friends. Over the past 24 hours, I’ve checked in (and been tagged by others’ check ins) about 4 or 5 times. It has already taken up a big chunk of my wall. Either I’m going to have to go through and constantly delete these posts off my wall, or I’m going to have to really be picky about my check-ins, and only do it when I really know it’s worth it to share. The ultimate goal of Facebook is to allow you to connect with friends. Places allows you to do that, if you use it the right way. I dread the day when all of my friends’ walls are tons of check-ins at their job, their house and their golden retriever’s veterinarian office. My hope is that it doesn’t take away from the more worthwhile communication we have with each other. That’s why I like foursquare. Instead of any sort of useful communication, it’s JUST about where you’re at and what you’re doing. It keeps things separate. If you want to know where your friends are, it’ll be on foursquare. If you want to talk to them or see what’s on their mind, etc. it’ll be on facebook. I don’t really want to have to find it all mixed and mashed up in one jumbled up, disorganized place. I don’t even think integrating the 2 is going to solve anything. It’s just going to cause your wall to be MORE flooded with check-ins. Consequently, I believe that at the end of the day, you have to choose one or the other… Facebook or Foursquare. On a slightly different note, I think it’ll be interesting to see if/when brands pick up on Facebook places. The promotions, discounts and special offers that you get on foursquare for check-ins and mayorships definitely encourage people to use the service. I’m wondering when we’ll see the same sort of thing happen on FB Places? And when we do, I think we’ll see activity on Places really start to pick up. There’s still things to be worked out… a lot of places I go to aren’t even listed yet. Once all of these things come together, people will start using (and possibly abusing, as I alluded to earlier) the Places application. Oh yeah… and it might help to get Android users on it sometime soon :-P

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