On August 19, Facebook created a new service through its site called Places. This pits the social networking giant against existing location-based applications such as FourSquare.
The new feature aims at helping existing users find friends and their locations in real time, and actually works with the existing services such as FourSquare. The advantage for Facebook is that is doesn't have to find new userts - it's 500 million users have access to this new option.
This is another addition to the social networking site's move to monetize its network usage, particularly among its mobile users. More than one quarter of Facebook users access the site from their Smartphones, and this allows the site to promote the use of mobile coupons for various services (as FourSquare currently does).
Facebook's Places essentially turns a user's Smartphone into a combination of GPS, social network (the world’s biggest), loyalty card, ad space and coupon dispenser - things that will potentially draw millions of retailers to start offering real-time, location based deals to users.
Of course, this comes with its fair share of concerns about privacy, but unlike the release of Places in other regions, such as the US, Facebook users have the option to turn this feature off if they don't wish to participate. It remains to be seen how successful this new feature will be, but with the increase in Smartphone users growing every day, it is only a matter of time before Places touches millions.
No comments:
Post a Comment