Facebook's 500 million-plus users will soon be able to track friends' whereabouts across the United States, as the world's largest internet social network adds technology to increasingly tie its virtual world to everyday life.
The new Places feature - which began rolling out on Wednesday to some users and goes nationwide within weeks - is touted as a tool to help users share where they are, figure out who is in the vicinity, and check out happenings and services within the same locale.
The addition of so-called location services to Facebook - a move that industry observers have speculated about for months - opens revenue opportunities for the company, but also presents it with delicate privacy challenges.
Places will be accessible via an Apple iPhone app that Facebook designed from Thursday, or from the social network's mobile version on touchscreen smartphones.
"This is not about broad-casting your location to the world it's about sharing where you are with your friends," said Michael Sharon, product manager for Places.
Users will be able to declare their whereabouts whenever they want, thereby opening themselves up potentially to offers, suggestions or advertisements about nearby businesses. But Facebook said on Wednesday it had no immediate plans to pursue such money-making opportunities.
Users can 'check in' from their sartphones, broadcasting their location - any-where from a restaurant to a park - to their own Facebook friends. Their whereabouts are then flashed through the network"s popular status up-dates.
Users can look up the locations of friends who are similarly 'checked in' - either viaupdates or on a separated web page- or tag friends who happen to physically be with them, thus declaring where they are.
But with privacy in mind, Facebook will allow users to block Places functions as part of a comprehensive set of privcy controls and other safeguards.
GOING PLACES
Location services like Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt, which allow consumers to use their cell phones to keep track of friends' whereabouts have caught on among technology aficionados
Foursquare and Gowalla executives said they will team up with Facebook and tailor their own services to work alongside
No comments:
Post a Comment