Today Facebook announced “Facebook Places” or “The Third Place,” a new feature that allows its 500MM users to check into a location just about anywhere.
Starting today, you can immediately tell people about your favorite spot with Facebook Places. You can share where you are and the friends you’re with in real time from your mobile device.
Highlights
At each location, Places lets you see your friends and other Facebook members (even if they’re not your friends), who are nearby, a feature called “People Here Now.”
Friends
You can tag your friends when you check in to a place. You have to allow proxy check-ins to have them post to your profile, but they’ll still post on the Place page.
What does this mean for businesses?
- Share where you are
- See where your friends are
- Find new places to go
- Will be integrated into Facebook Pages
- Reporting Places (Report, Abusive, Permanently closed, Duplicate)
Mobile Device Support
- New Facebook iPhone app with Facebook Places support is coming tonight
- Android, Blackberry and all other Facebook app enabled phones will be Places enabled in the coming months
- Places should work fine on any modern mobile browser
Developers and API
- Write & Search API are in private beta
Places Partners
- Gowalla, Foursquare, Brightkite, Booyah, Yelp and more will integrate it instead of getting killed by the 500 pound gorilla
- Foursquare is a “partner”, but has nothing to announce concerning integration. “This basically validates that we’re on to something with check-ins”, says Holger Luedorft from Foursquare. Foursquare says they’ll continue to work on their platform and they look forward to leveraging the Facebook Places API.
- Yelp and Keith Lee from Booyah, made a new app in three weeks using the Places API, called InCrowd. It will be available for the iPhone within the next few weeks.
General Usage
- Places will be U.S. only for now. Facebook will be rolling out slowly – starting tomorrow.
Reactions and Privacy
- As expected, the ACLU has its hands all over Facebook Pages concerning privacy implications.
- Default for check-ins is “friends-only.” You can remove any tag or check-in. You can opt out of being tagged in others’ check-ins.
Demo
Your thoughts
How do you think Places will be received by the rest of the world? Will you stop using Foursquare or GoWalla in favor of Facebook Places? Let us know in the comments.
Updates
Stay tuned, we’ll keep you posted with any new updates to Facebook Places right here.
