Facebook Places – Putting it in Perspective

Written by on August 28, 2010 - 1 Comment
Categories: "Social Soup"

What have you heard about Facebook Places?

Like  ‘all things facebook’ , you may have heard a lot of hype, and even panic.

Relax!

Let’s put it in perspective.

First, what is it?


Facebook places is simply a way that people can ‘check in’ at locations when they choose to.

(This is not a new concept! It’s only new to facebook)

Thousands of people have been using the similar Foursquare, and others that have come along. Twitter and others have added the ability to ‘add your location’ in the past year using the geolocation feature that most cell phones now have.


What’s the point?

1. Let’s say your at a concert. You can find out who is there that you know (if they’ve checked in)

2. Say you’re in an area of town with some time before your next appointment. You notice that a friend just checked in at a nearby coffee shop. So, you stop in and visit!

3. You notice several friends ‘checked in’ at the same restaurant. Next time you’re in the area, you will be sure to check it out!

4. One more way to share what is going on in your life…Instead of posting “I’m going to borders”, you just ‘check in’.

5. There are lots of reasons! (Be sure to add yours in the comments:) Foursquare became a ‘big hit’ in part to the competitive nature of it’s awards for checking in.

Facebook is simply jumping in the game as others have.

What is true and what is hype?

  • Contrary to what I’ve seen posted in a variety of places, your location won’t be posted every time you log into facebook.
  • ‘Checking in’ is available only via the iphone and touch.facebook phone applications.
  • Others CAN post your location. Like tagging a photo or video, friends can ‘tag’ you as being with them at this location. I’m not sure why anyone would want to tag you in a location that you aren’t, but as with photos, they could. (This feature can be disabled via your privacy settings even from your phone)

What is there to fear? (Not as much as you might think)

  • Yes, people will know where you are (if you check in or someone tags you).
  • If you have concerns about that, disable the tagging, and don’t check in.
  • Do you post where you are, or where you are going on facebook now? This isn’t so different.
  • If you don’t have the feature disabled that allows friends to tag you, you can remove the tag just as you can remove a tag from photos, videos, etc.

This is just my perspective on Facebook Places. What’s yours?

How to Find your Privacy Settings

Changing your privacy settings



More info:

More information re: facebook

Facebooks tour of places

Facebooks own blog post on Places

Facebook Places vs. Foursquare Vote on Mashable.com

Latest posts re: Facebook Places via Google Realtime search


 

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  • Amymichaelwilson

    The only people I could see who may have anything to worry about is if your teenage daughter is always checking in where she is at etc. Or is that just being paranoid. I normally do not worry about much of this stuff.