The initial launch of Facebook Places seemed pretty tame. They added a location check-in feature that was similar to the way the existing photo-tagging features work. Some users got into it, but it hasn’t seem to have made much of a splash. As part of this launch, we saw Foursquare, Gowalla, MyTown, and Yelp stand with Facebook as partners. Months later, things are a bit different.
API Access
Facebook has opened up the places API to third party developers. It was open before, but in a severely limited way. Now, developers have access to Facebook Places data and can also add to the database. Be sure to specify the “Facebook” in Facebook Places as some might confuse it with Google Places, a competing offering.
Mobile Apps
New mobile applications for iPhone and Android put both camps on the same page as far as location. While there are a million (ok, maybe not that many) location-based apps for either platform, I would suspect the Facebook app is more popular than any of them. With location support now baked into the Facebook applications installed on the most popular smartphones and mobile operating systems, Facebook just gained access to a huge base of location data.
Deals
I must agree with Greg Sterling when he says, “This is arguably the major announcement of the day, with far reaching implications for both users and businesses large and small.” When users think about location, they think about check-ins. Check-ins don’t make money, though. What businesses want is to attract customers and make money. While most location-based services are still in the early stages here, it looks like Facebook just beat everyone to the punch.
When you open Facebook Places on your iPhone (with the latest app installed) or at touch.facebook.com (no Deals support in Android app yet), you get your standard list of venues. You may notice that some of these venues have a yellow icon. That means there is a deal available for you to take advantage of. You can also see nearby deals on the map.
To take advantage of the deal, just visit the place, tap the deal to claim it, and show the coupon to the cashier (hopefully, you won’t need to demand a manager.)
The process for adding deals is almost as simple as the process for using them. The deals come directly from the merchant, not Facebook. Any business can add a deal using a simple one page form. No negotiations or middle-men. There are a few different types of Deals:
- Individual deals for a discount, free merchandise or other reward
- Friend deals where you and your friends claim an offer together
- Loyalty deals for being a frequent visitor to a place
- Charity deals where businesses pledge to donate to a cause when you check in
They have 22 partners, and will be opened to 20,000 small businesses. One of the partners, Gap, is giving away a free pair of jeans to the first 10,000 folks to check-in at a Gap location on an upcoming date.
With the largest social network implementing location across both the most popular mobile OS and the most popular smartphone, I think we should see some interesting things happening with location in the near future. It will also be interesting to see what happens with partnerships Facebook has as they seem to be stepping on a lot of toes here.
What do you think?
via Facebook