Let’s just pretend for a second that Facebook Places aka Facesquare is a charitable attempt on Facebook’s part to quell check-in fatigue by making nice with Foursquare, Gowalla, Booyah and Yelp (and not another attempt by Facebook to turn the world into this).
Because Booyah always throws people for a loop (“Who the hell uses MyTown?”) and Loopt’s 4 million users statistic always seems to shock people, we’ve posted this handy LBS comparison below. Water cooler tech forecasters should take note of Facesquare’s current lack of game mechanics.
As a wise TechCrunch commenter once said, “Just because you don’t use it, or have never heard of it, doesn’t negate its market share.”

Note: Data for all platforms except Facebook Places was last compiled in July 2010. Booyah has just released figures that sets their user base at 3.1 million.
For a hi-res image: Fidelman via Techpp.
Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 1 billion monthly active users. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students. It was a huge hit: in 2 weeks, half of the schools in the Boston area began demanding a Facebook network. Zuckerberg immediately recruited his friends Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin to help build Facebook, and within four months, Facebook added 30 more college networks. The original...
Foursquare is a geographical location based social network that incorporates gaming elements. Users share their location with friends by “checking in” via a smartphone app or by text message. Points are awarded for checking in at various venues. Users can connect their Foursquare accounts to their Twitter and Facebook accounts, which can update when a check in is registered. By checking in a certain number of times, or in different locations, users can collect virtual badges. In addition, users...
Gowalla is the leading Social Guide to the world’s most loved places and cities. Its award-winning mobile app and website — paired with an ever-growing collection of socially-powered Guides to cities, parks and regions across the globe — as curated by the Gowalla community and experts like Disney and National Geographic — make it easy for friends and families to share and discover photos, experiences and recommendations on the go. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Gowalla was launched in 2009 and...
Booyah, headquartered in San Francisco, is the market leader in real-world & location –based gaming. The company is founded on the premise that “where you play matters” and creates compelling, innovative mass-market games and entertainment products that have been enjoyed by tens of millions of worldwide. By integrating real-world signals into its portfolio of products, Booyah is more than a games company…literally changing how people play and delivering more personal, more social & more meaningful ways for gamers of...
Loopt is a social service that connects people to their community. Loopt’s mobile application and website give users the inside scoop wherever they go – tapping into local intelligence about places, making it easy to find friends and track down the best deals. Devices with Loopt include iPhone, iPod Touch and Android. Loopt has more than five million registered users in the U.S. and offers a variety of intuitive privacy controls to its users. Loopt is based in Mountain...
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
Boston, MA
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