Last week, Facebook announced the launch of its latest location product called Places. Similar to other location based social networking platforms such as Foursquare, Facebook Places allows people to “check-in” to an existing location or to add new locations to the platform through their smart phones.

When someone checks in at a place, for example a café or cinema, this shows up in that user’s news feed for their friends to see. Another feature is that it allows subsequent people who later visit the same location to see what their friends thought about the place or what they were doing at the time. Facebook Places goes a step further in social integration by helping to spot friends close by to your location. This gives people the opportunity to engage in spontaneous face to face meetings, and may have wider implications for local business marketing and privacy concerns.
(more…)