Facebook Places to be phased out in favour of wider location features

Social network will let its users tag anything with their location rather than focusing on check-ins.

Facebook is phasing out its Facebook Places feature in its iPhone and Android apps, but that doesn't mean the social network is giving up on letting its users share their locations.

"Now you can add location to anything," explains VP of product Chris Cox in a blog post. "Lots of people use Facebook to talk about where they are, have been or want to go. Now you can add location from anywhere, regardless of what device you are using, or whether it is a status update, photo or Wall post."

That means Facebook Places will be removed as a standalone feature in the company's iPhone and Android apps. When it launched last year, the feature was presented as a potential Foursquare-killer, bringing the idea of mobile check-ins to Facebook's several hundred million users.

Now it seems location will take a broader role in what people share on the social network. For now, it is unclear what this means for the location-based Facebook Deals service, which was based on Facebook Places.

The changes came as Facebook announced a swathe of changes to privacy and sharing features on its overall service. Users now have more control over which content and profile sections can be seen by different groups of contacts, with distinct shades of the Circles feature in Google+.

Facebook also now allows users to trigger a feature requiring tagged photos of them to be approved before they are published on their profile.

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