Facebook already knows what you like, who your friends are, what you're thinking right now, so what the hell does it matter that it knows where you are too, right? The king of social networks has finally revealed its much-anticipated location-awareness features.
Facebook Places will let users with Facebook apps on their mobile devices "check in" at various locations to let their friends know they've arrived. It sounds very similar to existing networks like FourSquare and Gowalla, except for the small detail that Places is backed by a network with more than half a billion members. Those other two have loyal followings, but it's going to be tough to compete with a rival that big.
But all is not lost for the pioneers of location-aware social networks. In fact, Facebook is actually partnering with FourSquare and Gowalla and prepping an application programming interface so that other location-aware services can create Facebook apps. So FourSquare users might still decide to use FourSquare; they may just prefer to do it while piggybacking on Facebook's platform. Also, these other services can keep differentiating themselves by focusing on things like location-based games. So don't worry, Mayor of the South Park Mall food court Sbarro in Moline, Ill. Your position is not in jeopardy.
The arrival of a Facebook location-based service is a double red-alert for privacy watchdogs -- letting a Web service know where you are at all times sounds fishy, and anything Facebook does comes under suspicion just because it's Facebook. This time, though, the site made its new feature opt-in. You have to make the conscious decision to broadcast your whereabouts before anyone can know where you are. Still, Facebook added a couple of new privacy settings related to Places that let you control who sees that information, so you might want check the defaults and customize those.
