It was almost exactly two years ago that Google launched Latitude, their location-based service. Two years may not seem like a long time, but it’s “the equivalent of a decade in location services,” Latitude PM Ken Norton jokes. Most importantly, it was just before Foursquare launched to the world at SXSW in 2009. That changed the entire game, literally, as Google CEO Eric Schmidt likes to say. → Read More
The mobile check-in is not just a way to tell your friends where you are via FourSquare or Facebook Places, it is a marketing opportunity. Southwest Airlines is combining Facebook Places and charitable giving to the Make-A-Wish Foundation to encourage travelers to check into Southwest when they get to the airport.
From now through Christmas, Southwest Airlines will make a $1 donation in the form… → Read More
If you were wondering how organisations and brands might take advantage of Facebook Places, a new Facebook application from the UK tourist agency VisitBritain provides a good example of things to come.
Developed by Ireland-based Betapond, the Facebook Places application is described as a ‘global guest book’ for tourists to share their experiences of the UK and to recommend attractions to… → Read More
We’re currently on a bus on the 101 South heading down to yet another Facebook event. We don’t know too much about this event other than it is centered around mobile. And while we don’t know anything for certain, one thing we have heard that is very likely coming is the Places Write API.
I know, it’s not as sexy as a Facebook iPad app or the mythical Facebook Phone. But still, this new API will… → Read More
Location-based social network Geomium is getting an official UK roll out today, having launched in London-only last month. Although in actual fact, the GPS-powered app is accessible from anywhere, it’s just the amount of supported local information that differs. The UK startup also says that it’s seen more than 100,000 downloads of the Geomium iPhone app since launch and that the early signs are… → Read More
When Facebook launched Places in August, it encouraged advertisers to list their businesses in the Places directory. But now an advertiser is taking it one step further and asking passersby to check into a billboard using Facebook Places.
In a new outdoor campaign across the UK for British singer Cheryl Cole, who has a new album coming out and a concert tour, fans who check into the billboard… → Read More
When Facebook launched Places, their entry into the location space, the headlines made it seem as if every startup player in the field was about to go extinct. Obviously, that didn’t happen. Instead, the playing field has largely stayed the same — though slowly, but surely, those startups are now integrating with Facebook Places in order to get access to Facebook’s massive social graph. The… → Read More
We’ve seen quite a few ingenious ways to use the Web for recruitment or to land a job. The Daily Mail newspaper’s job advert in its search engine-targeted robot.txt immediately springs to mind as does the ad man who bought up Google Adwords spots next to the names of six ad executives he wanted to work with.
But the following effort from German digital marketing agency Jung von Matt/Neckar… → Read More
We’ve seen quite a few ingenious ways to use the Web for recruitment or to land a job. The Daily Mail newspaper’s job advert in its search engine-targeted robot.txt immediately springs to mind as does the ad man who bought up Google Adwords spots next to the names of six ad executives he wanted to work with.
But the following effort from German digital marketing agency Jung von Matt/Neckar… → Read More
Facebook’s geo-locational service Facebook Places is now working in the United Kingdom. Want up to the minute proof? Check Twitter and TechCrunch Europe.
The Next Web reports that a conference for the formal announcement of Facebook Places United Kingdom happened at 8am BST, where Facebook Places product manager Michael Sharon walked British press through the service. If you are in the UK and… → Read More
Remember Please Rob Me, the site that tried to raise awareness about the dangers of broadcasting publicly on Foursquare and other geo services when you are not home? I don’t know that any burglaries ever actually occurred as a result of the information on the site, which in any case is not operational any more (it made its point).
But when you take the same idea of location broadcasting and put… → Read More
As Facebook Places becomes a destination for brands and local businesses to connect with Facebook’s 500 million-plus members, there is a need for technologies that help businesses run promotions and track interactions with their Places pages. Context Optional, a SaaS offering that allows users to build, monitor and manage brand presence on Facebook, is debuting a customizable Facebook Places… → Read More
Facebook has come along way from being Mark Zuckerberg’s afterschool project. In fact “The Facebook Effect” author David Kirkpatrick implied at TechCrunch Disrupt that Facebook was so influential it should be governed by the United Nations, “They are too important to our culture to be left to a private corporation” he said.
But, despite the fact that at 500 million users Facebook has just… → Read More
Booyah’s InCrowd, famously announced by founder Keith Lee at the Facebook Places launch event earlier this month, just hit the App store. InCrowd is the first of the inevitably many apps that will be built off the Facebook Places API and the only location-based app that has exclusive access to Facebook search.
Touted as part game and part social utility, InCrowd is unique in the LBS space as it… → Read More
This is a guest post by Hunter Walk (@hunterwalk) who conducted a survey of 500 Foursquare users to better understand their check in behaviors and motivations. His obsession with Foursquare is unrelated to his day job leading the consumer product team at YouTube, although he did at one point hold the Mayorship of their San Bruno headquarters.
Have you noticed “Off the Grid” [OTG] appearing in… → Read More
At the moment Facebook Places is only available in the United States. Or to put that another way, it’s only available to IP addresses associated with the United States. But clearly Facebook has been working on it for several months, and that also means that they have probably been tentatively testing it in other parts of the world, although there’s not a lot of information to go on right now. → Read More
George Orwell’s novel 1984 begins with Winston Smith, the main character, seeing posters saying BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU. In 2010, that could be replaced with FACEBOOK IS WATCHING YOU. Or rather, YOUR FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK ARE WATCHING YOU. You and your friends can now post where you are and share this information, if you so chose.
Facebook showed off the power of this new location feature at… → Read More
As we noted a couple days ago, the video Facebook made to explain their new Places feature was a bit Apple-esque. But something else they pulled off recently was even more Apple-esque: the secrecy surrounding their location launch.
Sure, we spotted the code for it months ago when an overzealous engineer likely pushed the code (but not the actual feature) to the touch.facebook.com version of the… → Read More
You’d be hard-pressed to find a hotter term in technology right now than “check-in.” Following Facebook’s entry into the location space with Places, it will soon be a term that hundreds of million of web users know well. But millions already do know it well thanks to Foursquare. While it seems likely that they weren’t the first to use it, they are the ones that made it ubiquitous among the… → Read More
The countdown is officially on for the big Facebook location backlash. How long will it be? One week? Two weeks? We all know it’s coming, it’s just a matter of when. And that’s too bad because I think Places is actually pretty great — potentially.
The ACLU wasted little time yesterday trying to start such a backlash (their post on the matter came what, a whole 30 seconds after the press… → Read More
Leading up to Facebook’s location announcement, there were two schools of thought. Either you thought Facebook Places was going to destroy Foursquare. Or you thought that this new service would help the startup by bringing more awareness to the location field. It appears that the latter is happening.
“Just heard from The @HarryH that today was @foursquare’s biggest day ever in terms of new user… → Read More
Yesterday during their Places event, Facebook showed a video highlighting the thoughts of the team of developers who actually built the functionality. It’s slick as hell — very nicely done. In fact, we weren’t the only ones who initially thought that it looked like an Apple video.
No it’s not quite the FaceTime Don Draper-esque commercial, but it’s much better than a lot of the very bland videos… → Read More
If you hate the idea of Facebook gaining a location element, you’re really going to hate this. It’s awesome.
Tonight, immediately after their Places launch event, the company flipped the switch (an actual switch, by the way) to make the location product live. While it was a few hours before the new location-enabled iPhone app went live, touch.facebook.com went live for millions of users around… → Read More
Perhaps you’ve heard: Facebook just released their new location feature called Places. If not, we have about a dozen posts about it that we recommend. But the obvious next question is what this means for those already in the space — and specifically the current buzz leader, Foursquare. Sure, they’re partnering with Facebook on the API launch, but are they in trouble? They don’t seem too worried… → Read More
At Facebook’s Places event earlier tonight, they noted that their iPhone app would be updated tonight with the new check-in functionality. Sure enough, here it is. Though the App Store update alert hasn’t kicked in yet, if you go to the actual page and redownload it, it should be the latest version (version 3.2).
As you can see, the new Places area is front and center in the app. Clicking on it… → Read More
As we heard tonight, Facebook has officially launched Places, the social network’s location-based platform. We know what Places will mean for Facebook users. Users will be able to check-in to Places (created by both people and businesses) via the web or through mobile apps. And the feature has an API so partners like Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp and Booyah can allow their users to check-in to… → Read More
Today at an event at their headquarters in Palo Alto, CA, Facebook unveiled their new Places product — their location/check-in solution. Obviously, their entry in this space has been rumored for a long time — a very long time. But during the Q&A session, someone asked how long Facebook has actually been working on this Places product. Since December, one of the engineers in charge of the… → Read More
We’re sitting here in the waiting room at Facebook waiting for the supposed location event to start. Facebook won’t say officially what the event is about, but it seems like everyone knows. And now we know for sure. Earlier, we found code evidence of the new Facebook Places area. Now we’ve found the feature itself. Welcome to Facebook Places.
The following screenshots are from the touch version… → Read More
Right now dozens of reporters are making their way down to Facebook’s Palo Alto offices for a special event that’s widely believed to be the launch of its long-rumored location feature. We’ve just come across evidence that this is, indeed, what the event will be focusing on, and it’s going to be called Facebook Places.
Nestled in the source of Facebook’s homepage (which I enjoy browsing as a… → Read More
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