A number of reporters have already been briefed on the Facebook Places/Location features. Some of the details are starting to leak but there’s also a lot of informed and pure speculation going on about what will and won’t be announced today.
Here are some of the pieces being written:
The GigaOm post is pretty thoughtful but much of the other writing is raw speculation or full of quotes from people who don’t really know local or understand the SMB advertising landscape.
I don’t fully know what’s coming today but I know a few things. I’ll do a write up at SEL later when the formal announcement is made.
High level:
- Don’t expect this to change the world; it will be more like a kind of “down payment” on something larger that will evolve
- Check-ins: yes
- Expect more privacy controversy (Facebook can’t seem to avoid it)
- But basically it sounds like this will mimic other existing, services with a couple of potentially interesting twists
- It’s not clear to me whether this will be similarly “platformized”: making location available to third parties via Connect or an API.
Will it “kill” (fill in the blank with the company of choice): Google Latitude, Loopt, Foursquare, etc.? No. Will it be significant for the local/LBS market? Yes; if for no other reason than Facebook’s size and visibility — and its corresponding ability to mainstream something like check-ins.
Facebook says it has 150 million active (daily) mobile users spanning many countries.
I’ve argued over at Internet2Go that it’s only a matter of time before Facebook becomes a huge mobile advertising platform. But they’re in no rush to do so. However there are lots of interesting ad opportunities for a Facebook Places/Location.
On balance it doesn’t dramatically change the landscape in my view (w/o having heard the details). Rather it just adds fuel to the fire that is now local/LBS.
August 18th, 2010 at 7:44 pm
I don’t know, Greg, I think this has the potential to be the biggest announcement in Local this year. It seems like I’ve read that there are already more claimed Fan Pages on FB (~2.5MM?) than Places listings (~2MM). Facebook seems much easier to grok for the average small businessperson than any other platform out there…even for business owners in a slightly older demographic.
August 18th, 2010 at 7:45 pm
Also, I’m speaking purely from the profile/social side of things rather than the LBS side of things, which I don’t follow nearly as closely as you, of course!
August 18th, 2010 at 7:59 pm
I think that potential certainly exists and may develop over time. I don’t think what we’ll hear today will fully expose or realize that potential. I could be quite wrong of course.