500 million-plus users of Facebook will soon be able to track the whereabouts of friends’ in the United States as the largest global network of social Internet technology to link adds more and more their virtual world to everyday life.
The new “Places” feature – which begins on Wednesday the deployment of some users throughout the country and is a matter of weeks – it is considered as a tool to help users share their location, find out who is in the neighborhood, and check a look at the events and services within the same locality.
The addition of location services called to Facebook – a move that industry observers have speculated for months about – opens new revenue opportunities for the company, but also poses privacy challenges delicate.
Places will be accessible through an application for the Apple iPhone designed from Facebook on Thursday, or own a mobile social network of smartphones with touch screen.
“This is not about the dissemination of its location in the world, when you try to share with your friends,” said Michael Sharon, product manager Places.
Users can declare their whereabouts when they wish, thus potentially open to offers, suggestions or announcements on nearby businesses. Facebook said on Wednesday it had no immediate plans yet to pursue these opportunities to make money.
Users can “check in” on their smart phones, broadcasting their location – anywhere from one restaurant to a park – to their own Facebook friends. His whereabouts is then passed through the status updates of the popular network.
Users can search the locations of friends who are also “charged” – whether via upgrades or in a separate Web page – or friends who happen to be physically label them with what is stated where they are.
But with privacy in mind, Facebook will allow users to block “Places” functions as part of a comprehensive set of privacy controls and other safeguards.
The new services could help Facebook to grab a bigger piece of a local advertising market driven by small businesses such as restaurants and shops. The huge size of this market – estimated at tens of billions of dollars a year in the United States alone – has attracted online companies like Google and Yelp.
The property could finally stop targeting Facebook users with ads based on location, or offering special coupons when a user approaches a certain business, supplementing the $ 700 million to $ 800 million that Facebook generates income by the year past, people familiar with the matter.
Location, Location
Location-based services such as Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt, which allows consumers to use their cell phones to keep track of their whereabouts friends and win prizes for those who frequent the brick and mortar companies have caught on among fans technology.
Gowalla executives homer and appeared on stage with Facebook on Wednesday, saying it will join the social network and adapt their own departments to work alongside their “places” feature.
Foursquare, a location services fastest growing, has amassed 2.7 million users since its launch in March 2009 and raised $ 20 million in venture capital funding in June. Facebook and Yahoo has unsuccessfully tried to buy Foursquare earlier this year, according to media reports.
Whether location services appeal to the mainstream audience on Facebook yet remains to be seen, especially given the concerns that many people may have about a service that reveals their physical location.
Privacy has been a thorny issue for the persistence of social networking companies, which must balance the interests of users about how much of your personal information is made public with the need to generate revenue for the exchange of information about users with advertisers.
In May, Facebook introduced tools to give users more control over what personal information is shared in its service, following criticism by many privacy advocates.
Google Buzz, a microblogging service for broadcasting short messages to friends and contacts, was blamed for lax privacy settings as soon as launched in January, a slip of the service never recovered, according to analysts .
“They want to make sure they have done their homework, because privacy rights are becoming a concern at the door,” said Michael Gartenberg, a partner at consulting and analyst firm Altimeter Group. “No” want to introduce this and then having to go back and fix it. “