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Facebook’s location based service Places have been launched in many countries according to user reports.
The new countries where the location-based service have reportedly arrived are:
BulgariaEnjoy the service, all you check-in lovers!
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Facebook has finally unveiled its location-based service dubbed as “Facebook Places.”
This service allows users to “check in” at locations and share it with their Facebook friends and network. When a user checks in at a location, it will be shared immediately shared with immediate friends automatically.
This new addition will spark privacy concerns around the world. So, Facebook is launching the service with several protections and controls including option to detag and disable Places entirely. Users will be notified when friends add the user’s location.
“What we see with Facebook is a massive learning curve. Every time they make a change, consumers scramble to figure out the privacy settings,” said Rainey Reitman, spokeswoman for Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in the US. “Location data is tied to people’s safety – if people know where you are, they know where you’re not. Your location data is some of the most sensitive data we have. I expect we’ll see from the get-go people who don’t understand how to control the privacy settings.”
“Don’t post anything online you wouldn’t want to get out publicly to anyone,” added Reitman.
Facebook Places will be rolled out only to the U.S. users over the next few day, before rolling out to the other users. Users outside U.S. will be able to see check-ins, but won’t be able to check-in themselves.
The company is said to be updating its mobile Web service to provide the feature, and will also be rolling out a completely new version of it iPhone, while Blackberry and Android users will have to wait or use Facebook in a browser.
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Facebook users can expect a location-based service soon. This new service will allow Facebook’s 400 million plus users to see the locations of their friends in addition to their status updates.
The new service is expected to be released during the Facebook’s f8 developer conference, to be held in late April.
According to a report in The New York Times, the new service will let users share their location in their status updates, as well as see the location of their friends.
Facebook is also going to make API’s available to third-party developers, which they can use to offer their own location-based services to Facebook users.
This is a kind of service that is or is similar to the service provided by Loopt and FourSquare for quite some time now. Google Buzz also offers the same, but got itself into a mess of lawsuits over privacy violations. Twitter, has also added an option to share location data with messages.
Facebook have been working on location-based service for over a year now, but is taking the time to make sure everything is ready before they roll out the service. One important issue Facebook is taking into account is how to add location data to its service without raising potential privacy concerns or negative feedback from its users, which is a staggering 400 million.
As an precaution for the new service, Facebook has updated its privacy policy last November, which now states: “When you share your location with other or add a location to something you post, we treat that like any other content you post.”
The service is expected to be an opt-in – users have to agree to share their location information – which will certainly help stem some privacy concerns.
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Facebook is said to be doing due diligence on the a potential deal with Loopt, a mobile social location service, according to Techcrunch.
Both the parties have not confirmed on this. Loopt is said to have refused to comment on this subject, while Facebook spokesperson is reported to have said: “As a practical matter, we don’t comment on rumor and speculation.”
It is evident that the potential deal is in its early stages, but we can bet that Facebook is at the least very interested in acquiring Loopt, or perhaps a location-based service like it.
Till date Facebook have sat on the sidelines and ignored location features and the ever-increasing popularity of checking-in at locations via mobile devices. This hesitation maybe due to the privacy concerns around disclosing location information.
Location-aware services are immensely popular and has become a social trend almost in parallel to the popularity of social networking. So far, startups like Loopt, Foursquare, Gowalla, aka-aki and hundreds of little-known players are dominating this field. Recently launched Google Buzz also allows check-ins of locations via a mobile device.
With mobile location-based services expected to generate almost $13 billion by 2014, according to Juniper Research, and the pace at which its popularity is rising and Facebook, with a user base of over 100 million mobile users, must should definitely want their share of the pie. Once can also suggest the move as a catch-up game with Google.
However, Facebook’s presence in this area will have a huge impact on the social location service space and on it’s users privacy concerns.
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