Facebook Places was launched last week in an effort to connect history with geography.  According to an article in CNET news, “Facebook Places will not just collect location check-ins, it’ll allow for messages and comments and pictures to be aggregated around them, creating a sort of ‘collective memory’ that places a layer of Facebook-published narrative atop the physical world.”

Facebook users are able to share their location in real-time using an iPhone or a web page accessed through a mobile browser that supports HTML 5 and geolocation.  Checking in sends a message to friends News Feeds and shows up in the Recent Activity list associated with the relevant Place page.  Places also allows users to tag friends who are present in a location, just as they can tag friends in photos posted to Facebook. 

Does Facebook Places have what it takes to make Foursquare (a popular location sharing network) obsolete?  Many location based services have had trouble getting users to continue checking-in (check-in fatigue).  Foursquare offers incentives to its users while Facebook’s Places does not offer any extra thrills.  However, according to InformationWeek, Facebook’s acquisition of Hot Potato was publicized on Friday.  The speculated $10-$15 million acquisition should lead to some Hot Potato integration into Facebook’s Places application.   What do other location-sharing services offer to overcome check-in fatigue, and will Facebook Places end up suffering from this debilitating condition?  Take a look in PC World’s article.

How is it competing with Google?  If your business is a brick and mortar location that customers visit in person, odds are good that it will end up in Facebook Places whether you put it there or not.  Even if you don’t choose to take advantage of Facebook Places to promote business, you should still claim ownership of your place to ensure the information is accurate.  By claiming your place, you are able to edit the address, business hours, profile picture, contact information, and other settings such as designating administrative authorization to alter the Places page.  Read more on how to claim your Business in the San Francisco Chronicle.

The majority of the authors that are writing about Facebook Places seem to believe that the application is fairly useless, gimmicky, and borderline creepy.   However, I believe that Facebook is turning to the right direction as GIS becomes a more useful tool in our everyday lives.  At an FAA conference, in Dallas, TX, a speaker suggested that although the need for GIS is not understood by many non-GIS players, neither was the internet and email at one time.  It will be interesting to see what Facebook and developers will do with Places and how it will compete with Google Latitude.   

Please share your thoughts about Facebook’s Places with us by leaving us a comment.