Facebook Places: What you need to know

by Robin Grant in News on 23 August 2010 at 17:49 Google+

On Wednesday evening Facebook launched Facebook Places, an event of some significance. I spent some time over the weekend trying to pull together all the best information into one place, which I share below. I’ll also be regularly updating this post as things develop, so be sure to bookmark this post and check back often.

This video from Facebook is a good place to start getting your head around how it works from a users perspective (especially if you’re outside of the US, the only country with access to the service currently), as is Walter Mossberg’s early review. Inside Facebook have a good guided tour of the features and privacy settings and also bring news of how friends’ check-ins appear on your events page. However, Kunur Patel describes her friends’ initial reactions to being checked in by her when they were out for dinner, which implies the product is going to take some getting used to (update: All Facebook draws attention to a brewing Facebook Places backlash).

The Wall Street Journal points out how this opens up competition between Facebook and Google, specifically the Google Places product aimed at local businesses and Nick O’Neill paints a grim picture of what this means for Foursquare while Techcrunch tries to decipher what Foursquare themselves think.

What Marketers need to know
Inside Facebook has a great hands-on guide to how marketers and businesses can start using Facebook Places and Facebook themselves have put together a FAQ on Places for Advertisers. Michael Lazerow looks at what opportunities Places opens up in terms of app development, Debra Aho Williamson has done some thinking about the long term implications for marketers, Josh Constine looks at its potential to change how people find and use real-time information and Tom Cummings puts it all in context. However, in the short term, it looks like the introduction of Places has slowed natural Facebook page fan growth by over 50%.

Update: Inside Facebook have a great guide to Facebook Places developments over the past few weeks and both Context Optional and Fan Appz have released Places based apps for brands allowing them to run promotions and mimic Foursquare’s game mechanics.

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  • http://wearesocial.net/blog/2010/08/socials-monday-mashup-38/ We Are Social’s Monday Mashup #38 / we are social

    [...] Facebook Places: What you need to know The big Facebook news of the week was the launch of Facebook Places. Robin spent some time over the weekend trying to pull together all the best information on Facebook Places into one place, which you can find here. [...]

  • Thompson Morrison

    Great post Robin. I wonder how useful location-based services like Facebook Places will really be. I've blogged about the topic here and would love to get your thoughts: http://wp.me/pJfdj-mA

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Adam-Fischer/607158703 Adam Fischer

    Thanks for the nice post. I do think this geo-location stuff is going to get bigger and more important as users shift to smart phones. In fact, even as Facebook gets involved in it, it may be its downfall. If geo-location software becomes really big, then Facebook will have a tough time keeping up because its not its core competency. If Facebook is only second best in this area, this will tarnish its number 1 image in many respects.

    I write a lot about Facebook in my blog – check it out:
    http://www.aimintegratedmarketing.com/internet-…

  • Luke

    One of the least talked-about aspects of Places is the cool things third-party developers can do with it. Imagine a geolocation service that allows people to alert Facebook users within a certain location that their pet has gone missing (the online equivalent of posting those posters around the neighborhood). But then there's likely to be the bad as well: vigilante groups on Facebook geotagging the houses of suspected pedophiles. I blogged a bit about this here:
    http://www.rferl.org/content/Facebook_Places_It…

  • http://www.casino-yes.com/jeux-casinos/machines-sous/ Machine A Sous

    I am not fond of people knowing where I am anytime of the day and I surely do not like the idea of OTHER people telling where I am.

  • http://chrisdeary.com/2010/08/24/my-bookmarks-112/ Footprints (24.08.10) : Chris Deary

    [...] Facebook Places: What you need to know [...]

  • Tom Cummings

    Robin – Great collection of articles and thoughts here. Thanks for putting it together. I'm humbled to be included! @tomcummings

  • http://wearesocial.net/blog/2010/08/socials-tuesday-tweakup-4/ We Are Social’s Tuesday Tweakup #4 / we are social

    [...] Facebook page fan growth slows down Robin wrote a great post on Facebook Places last week tying in lots of the best information on what it is and how it works. Well since then, [...]

  • http://wearesocial.net/blog/2010/09/socials-monday-mashup-41/ We Are Social’s Monday Mashup #41 / we are social

    [...] interview in the New Yorker Facebook has extended the availability of its geo-tagging service Facebook Places to the UK and Japan. Previously only available in the US the service allows users to check into [...]