Will Facebook Places Become a Source for Travel Tips?

August 24, 2010 at 8:38 AM | by JetSetCD | Comments (3)

Have you played around yet with Facebook Places? The social media network's newest feature, this location-based networking, only recently launched and already we're brainstorming on how it could possibly affect the way we travel.

Like Foursquare, Facebook Places allows you to virtually "check in" wherever you are, with the ability to broadcast this information to your Facebook friends and leave tips for their future visits. On the other hand, Places does not have the addictive gaming element of Foursquare, since it doesn't award you badges or mayorships or anything to keep users coming back after the novelty wears off, and especially not after you've succesfully annoyed all 742 of your "friends" with a stream of wall post check-ins.

We'll be honest and say that after a few minutes playing with Facebook Places, we disabled it on our personal account. We made this decision for the main reason that we're already so invested in our community over at rival Foursquare that doubling up on check-ins at venues seems tiring and unrewarding. We're also not enthralled with the idea of publicizing the mundane news of our whereabouts to people we maybe once sat next to in Anthropology 102. But all this won't stop Facebook diehards from possibly adding Places to their list of daily must-dos, when home or on the road.

The Facebook blog hints that Places could be just the basis for travel: "You may want to share your check-in information with third-party applications that build interesting experiences around location, such as travel planning." But then, there's the idea of sharing our information with yet more third-party apps, and we haven't yet heard of any developed for Places.

As you can see in the video above (if you can stomach it), Facebook Places is trying to position itself as a tool for connecting further with friends and family, and most definitely in a manner so heartwarming that there should be fricking Hallmark cards flying out of the thing. It's for chance meetings at the local soda fountain to share a root beer float, or for marking those special moments when you rediscover the tourist-favorite locations in your home city (ex: SF's Golden Gate Bridge) and want everyone to know. What Facebook Places is not, is a tool that encourages discovery or travel.

Our conclusion: you'll probably notice more moms and coupon-clipping yuppies on Facebook using Places than people who actually travel. That is unless you're a traveler with an audience of moms and yuppies who want to follow your movements around the world from the comfort of their own Facebook wall.

What do you think of Facebook Places? Good for travel tips or not so good?

Comments (3)

Return to » Will Facebook Places Become a Source for Travel Tips?

I will never use Facebook places. I've been a foursquare user for about a year now, and I think it's a great culture. The good thing about Foursquare is that your friends are like-minded individuals - they actually care about where you are. With Facebook Places, your checkins get shared with everyone whether they want to see them or not, and that's its biggest problem. Most of my friends don't want to know that I'm at the gym or the airport, but on Foursquare, the information is actually relevant and people take an interest.

@racingwings I agree. For me, it's also that I have totally different sets of friends on Facebook and Foursquare. Facebook tends to be people I no longer have much of an active interest in any longer, whereas Foursquare is a small, but very active community of people with whom I still talk and might be interested in seeing their whereabouts. My Foursquare friends are also several times more socially active and mobile than my Facebook ones.

I have never heard about Facebook Places before. Is it strictly for traveling, or can it be used for other purposes? Google Places has a lot of features in its Map part where people can register their favorite travel spots and add pictures to the map trough other services. All the best Vinterdekk

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