FACEBOOK Inc. introduced a service that makes it easier for users to share their whereabouts with other people, making a deeper push into a fast-growing market pioneered by Foursquare Labs Inc.
The feature is aimed at helping users of the sociel network find friendsand disclose their own location, said Facebook Chief Executive OfficerMark Zuckerberg. Places works with existing location-aware tools offered by Foursquare, as well as Gowalla Inc., Zuckerberg added.
Facebook Places is available immediately in the United States through the latest version of Facebook’s iPhone app and, for other advanced mobile phones (see the official Facebook’s Places page), through the company’s site for advanced mobile devices , executives announced at Facebook’s headquarters in Palo Alto, California.
Users who wish to announce their location to their friends on Facebookwould tap a “check in” button to see a list of places nearby, and then choose the place that matches where they are.
“After checking in, your check-in will create a story in your friends’ News Feeds and show up in the Recent Activity section on the page for that place,” Places product manager Michael Sharon wrote on Facebook’s blog.
Facebook staff also said the feature will be useful not only to let friends know where they are, but also to learn if their friends are nearby at the same time, and to write down what they are doing at the location and what they think about it – creating a trail allowing friends to see what the writer did there days or even years ago.
