Facebook's Location Services - A Good Thing?

So.  Here it is.  Amidst some fanfare and trumpeting, Facebook has announced its location services Package, called (fair enough) 'Places', and involves the more or less willing co-operation of the the other big location services.

Firstly, a disclaimer.  I don't do Foursquare or Gowalla or any of the others (although I know and respect some perfectly sane people  who do).  So it could be said that I'm not going to be the most knowledgeable or unbiased reporter.  Heck, I forget to tell my colleagues where I am half the time, so there's no way I'm going to open my life up to so much scrutiny.

Firstly: what are the changes?  If you're accessing Facebook from your smartphone, then you'll be able to check in to locations and alert friends to your presence, and see any of your friends who are nearby (or others who've left their privacy wide open). These are broadcast in status updates (oh God NO!  I hope there's some way to filter them out) and in the 'Places' page for that location.

You can tag friends who are near you, although apparently users will be able to remove themselves after they are tagged (possibly not before their boss/spouse has seen them of course ;-) ) with special privacy controls to protect minors, “Only friends will ever see when a minor checks in, anywhere. That means that even if the minor chooses to change their Places I ‘check-in’ setting to ‘Everyone,’ their check-ins will still only be visible to friends,” explained a Facebook spokesman. Although of course, as many minors are completely non-discriminatory about whom they become friends with, that wouldn't be so effective.  How about not having the service available to under 18's, then, Facebook?  Oh, I forgot. All the under 13's are lying about their age anyway ... *sighs*.

Update 23/09/10: There's a really helpful post in AllFacebook on how to customise your privacy settings - it's not quite as simple as it would first appear (why doesn't that surprise me?).  I strongly suggest you check it out.

US Facebook users need to update their iPhone Facebook app, or visit touch.facebook.com, to get access to the tool. A user then needs to select ‘Places’, tap the ‘Check-In’ button, and then a list of nearby places will come up on the screen. Facebook members then can choose the place which matches their location, and if it is not on the list, they can search for it or add it.

Each location gets it's own newsfeed, where you can see which of your friends has visited the place, even if their visit was months earlier. Even the privacy-phobe in me rather likes that bit, especially if they've uploaded comments, reviews or photos:  “Stories are going to be pinned to a physical location so that in 20 years our children will go to Ocean Beach and their phone will tell them this is the place their parents had their first kiss, and here’s the picture they took afterwards, and here’s what their friends had to say,” Facebook VP Chris Cox said.

But then again ... thinking about it ... I'm not sure I want my kids knowing what I did at the foot of the Sacré Cœur when I was twenty-one.  Thank God Facebook Places wasn't around then.


You can read more at:

• http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/08/watch-facebooks-location-sharing-announcement-live/#ixzz0x2YN04H4
• http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/19/technology/19facebook.html?_r=1
  http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/08/watch-facebooks-location-sharing-announcement-live/
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/7953403/Facebook-Places-social-network-adds-location-check-ins.html