Facebook Places – Finally Arrives in Ireland

Have you checked in Yet?

Facebook Places has Arrived in Ireland. Better late than never!

Facebook places made its debut in the US and UK back in August. The service only arrived in Ireland yesterday.

How does it work? Places allows you to ‘check in’ to locations, so that your friends can know where you are. This could be at home, work, pub or even sporting event.

Why introduce this service? On one level this is Facebook’s antidote to Four Square (the location based gaming network). On another level location targeting is likely to be a a key part of Facebook’s future strategy. Places will lead to a range of additional Facebook services. The most high profile of which is likely to be Facebook Deals. We will be doing a post on this in the near future.

First Impressions:

There are less features than FourSquare, but this makes Places is easy to use. So far 18 of my friends have ‘checked in’. I feel it will take a while for Places to provide useful information about friends and what they are doing. It also raises the nagging privacy issue – do I really want people to know? Or do I even want to know where my friends are 24/7?

Privacy

Its important to note that friends can check you into a location. You may not like this feature. It might even get some people in a lot of trouble. If this is a concern check out the web video below on how to disable Facebook Places.

We will aim to do a review in a few months time when Places has been adopted by more Irish users and we can see what trends are emerging. How will Irish people react to ‘Checking In’?

Here is the fluffy Guide to Facebook Places:

If you are concerned about privacy here is a quick video on how to change your settings.

The Local Search Team

By: Des MartinDate: 04.02.2011
Posted in Facebook, Mobile News 1 Comment »