Facebook launches it’s newest features called “Places” for mobile devices. If know Foursquare, this Facebook Places uses more or less the same concepts. The idea is to let you share about places where you are to your friends by “checking in” to that place. Currently this feature is only available in US using Facebook for iPhone app and the web version touch.facebook.com. But Facebook promised to make it available to more countries and more mobile platforms soon.
Well, these features is actually not a new thing. Foursquare is one of the company that has been using it before in it’s services. And there’s even the Foursquare app for iPhone. So Facebook is kind of competing Foursquare now. Facebook probably seen this as an interesting features and opportunities. And with the existence of the Foursquare and looking at the number of Facebook users, it’s relatively easy for Facebook to adopt this feature to it’s network.
Besides the “check-in” features which enable you to share your location to your friends, the Facebook Places also offers options to discover your friends who are also at the same place by tagging them. Those people you can find on the “People Here Now” section.
What about Privacy?
We know that many people and media have been talking about privacy controls issues in Facebook recently. So in this new feature, Facebook also include the privacy controls. For those of you who don’t want to be tagged or don’t want to be appear in the list of “People Here Now” section, you can set it through your privacy control.
There should be an update to the Facebook for iPhone and i’ve been waiting for that. But i haven’t seen it so far. Mine is Facebook 3.1.4 so it should be 3.1.5 or something like that. I tried to access it through touch.facebook.com and i couldn’t find the “Places” options. But yeah, i’m not in US though.
So for those of you in US, you may try it and tell me your impressions and opinions!
[via: FacebookBlog]
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