Facebook Places.

1978   13 years ago
CH10 | 0 subscribers
1978   13 years ago
Social networking giant Facebook has introduced a new location-based mobile phone application called "Facebook Places" that lets users "check-in" and let everyone in their Facebook network know where they are and what they're doing. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg officially launched Facebook Places on August 18, 2010. When you check in to Facebook Places, Facebook "shares" that information with your Facebook friends, "complete with maps and comments and the Facebook thumbs-up 'like' feature." /nAccording to TechCrunch, Facebook stated at the launch event that Facebook Places serves three purposes: it helps you "share where you are...see who's around you and see what's going on nearby."/nFacebook says it thinks Places will let users "take advantage of unexpected coincidences" - by checking in to a location, a user can find out if any Facebook friends are checked in nearby through Facebook Places' "People Here Now" list. If you're at a concert, for example, you can check in using Facebook Places and then find out who among your Facebook friends is also there. In addition to information about user locations being spread across groups of Facebook friends, each location will also have its own newsfeed that lists recent actions and check-ins. Users who check-in to locations can also "tag" friends nearby - just like they tag people in Facebook photos./nWhat about privacy? By default, user check-ins on Facebook Places are only seen by friends in their network. Privacy settings let users change who can see this information. And if you want to opt out of being included in the "People Here Now" list, you can. Friends can only tag you on Facebook Places if you enable them to do so./nFacebook Places is currently available as an iPhone application. Users who don't have an iPhone can also access Facebook Places via browsers at touch.facebook.com. The browser must support "both HTML and geolocation." /nRepresentatives from Yelp, Booyah, Foursquare and GoWalla were physically present at the launch of Facebook Places, and have each stated their interest in integrating the Places API into their existing services.
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