Facebook to Introduce Location-Based Check-Ins

Location-based social networking via sites like Foursquare and Gowalla  is one of the most explosive trends to hit the web in the past couple years. These platforms have shown rapid growth, and have been utilized by major agencies and marketing organizations. With everyone jumping on the location-based bandwagon, it’s only natural that Mr. Zuckerberg would be right behind.

Recent reports are suggesting that Facebook is about to launch a “Places” tab, which, among other things, will allow users to “Check-in” at various locations.

Check-ins are a hot tamale. Even Yelp recently added a check-in feature to their site, and Twitter now offers optional location-based Tweets. So will this move by Facebook be a killer for location-based sites? Or will this be something the site has a hard time selling to its core users? With privacy concerns looming after Facebook launched their Open Graph platform a few weeks ago (in addition to a recent “glitch” that allowed users to view supposedly private information about friends), advocates may have some issues with Facebook making another move to collect information about its users.

One of the major benefits for businesses would be that they may be able to target their advertising based on check-ins. So, if you check in at a Starbucks, their advertising messages would pop up on your wall. According to Advertising Age, McDonalds is the first marketer to get on board with utilizing this new feature. The article reports that the fast food giant is building an application that would allow users to check in at their locations, while also mentioning a featured product, such as an Angus Quarter Pounder.

Tech Crunch recently reported that the new “Places” tab is already visible within the Facebook code on the touch.facebook.com version of the site, basically confirming the widespread speculation. According to the post, the code will grab your location information from your phone, then offer up a list of places around you where you can “check-in”. The article also says that the code will record your latitude, longitude, altitude, speed and heading. Whew – that’s a lot of info.

With a user base of more than 450 million – Facebook is the Goliath to beat. By bringing all the most popular elements of social networking into one giant platform, Facebook is working to conquer all its competitors and bring social networking full circle. But do users prefer to segment their social networking through different sites?

The addition of @ replies on Facebook didn’t squash Twitter – as many speculated. And on Yelp, I’ve heard chatter that many people chose to opt out of the Facebook Open Graph option because they like their Facebook & Yelp profiles to live separately. Different sites for different purposes.

Personally I think location-based status updates make sense on Facebook. Most of us are only friends with people we know – friends, family, co-workers. So, it makes sense to share our location information with these people.

Sharing this information with people we don’t know, however, could be a little more disconcerting for many people. Also, given the fact that many Facebook users seem unaware of how to utilize their privacy settings – they may end up sharing more information than they intended. This could present a problem. We don’t necessarily want strangers or other web sites  knowing where we’re “checking-in” every day.

So, as with many of Facebook’s new changes – it’s time to hurry up and wait for the feature to roll out. In the meantime, we can speculate about the impacts this development will have on Facebook’s competitiors, and on the social networking mecca itself. Brainstorming time for marketers – how can YOU use check-ins to help drive your business? Spend some time on Foursquare – if you haven’t already – and learn more about location. Opportunity awaits!

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