Social network finally launches its geolocation offering, so what are the details?
After much speculation, last night Facebook finally took the wrappers off its geolocation plans: Facebook Places.
It's described by the company as a way to "share where you are and the friends you're with in real time from your mobile device".
That means check-ins - Facebook has adopted the lingo popularised by Foursquare and its social location rivals.
Initially, this all takes place using a new update to Facebook's iPhone app, or its HTML5 touch.facebook.com mobile website.
Users can check in to places near their current location, or add their own if they don't find it on Facebook's database. They can also tag friends that they're with, and push this data out to others as a status update.
Article continues belowAdvertisement
Disappointingly for Facebook's global users, Facebook Places is US-only for now - and restricted to iPhone on the app side. "We expect to make it more available to more countries and on additional mobile platforms soon," explains the company.
Keen to show that Facebook Places isn't designed to cannibalise existing social location services, Facebook invited Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp and Booyah to participate in its launch last night.
In Foursquare and Gowalla's case, they'll be integrating their apps with Facebook Places, allowing people to publish their check-ins and achievements on those services to Facebook.
Meanwhile, Booyah has announced a new app called InCrowd, which it describes as a location-based social game, built on top of Facebook Places.
Facebook is also making a read-only Places API available to mobile developers, with a write & search API in closed beta.
One interesting aspect: Facebook is working with Microsoft's Bing service for mapping aspects, seemingly alongside Google Maps.
"Facebook is using Bing Maps to pinpoint everyone’s location-based experiences on Facebook.com," explains Chris Pendleton, blogging on the Bing website. However, Facebook's screenshot of Places clearly shows a Google logo.
What about privacy? Facebook has taken flak for a perceived cavalier approach to its users' privacy in recent months, so it was unsurprising to see this issue addressed last night at the launch of Facebook Places.
As Foursquare has also found, geolocation services can pose thorny questions about user privacy and data sharing.
Here's Facebook's word: "With Places, you are in control of what you share and the people you share with."
That means users can choose whether to share their location when checking in somewhere, and can also control whether their friends are allowed to tag them - while being able to remove check-ins and tags from their phone or on the web.
However, that hasn't been enough to deflect criticism from the ACLU of Northern California, which has issued a statement warning consumers to 'Check This Out Before Check In'.
"In the world of Facebook Places, “no” is unfortunately not an option," writes the ACLU.
"Places allows your friends to tag you when they check in somewhere, and Facebook makes it very easy to say “yes” to allowing your friends to check in for you. But when it comes to opting out of that feature, you are only given a “not now” option (aka ask me again later). “No” isn’t one of the easy options."
Expect more comment and debate around Facebook's new service in the coming days, as the industry - and Facebook's 150 million mobile users - get to grips with its implications.
