Facebook’s latest product, a locations-based service called ‘Places’, was announced today. It was released in a Facebook app update (at least on the iPhone) tonight. Is this the beginning of the end for Foursquare and Gowalla? Can they really compete with the giant social experience that is Facebook? Though, Facebook isn’t claiming to be a competitor, but rather a provider of an API (Places API beta) for smaller locations services to utilize to incorporate into their own service. Being an avid user of Foursquare and a skeptic of Facebook, I sure hope they can stay afloat in the long-run. Regardless, I am going to use both Foursquare and Facebook’s ‘Places’ to learn both platforms and decide for myself which one I like or if they both really can work together. I currently, and will continue to, send my interesting Foursquare Check-in’s to Facebook. It will also be interesting to see how Facebook will use ‘Places’ to generate revenue from businesses – as Foursquare and Gowalla were starting to incorporate that type of model.
(On a side note: The latest Facebook iPhone app release seems to have resolved the slow/lag time after posting a comment on an item. Your comment is posted as soon as you finish typing and hit “Post” as fast as your internet connection allows. It used to lag several seconds.)
