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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg - Source: Reuters -
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For several months there has been a buzz about location based social networking - services which use the GPS in your Smartphone or laptop to help you share your location with friends.
That buzz got louder today with Facebook announcing their new service - Facebook Places.
Using Places, Facebook users will be able to add their current location to their status updates.
At a press conference today to launch the service Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg outlined the three main uses of Places. Firstly the service will allow users to broadcast their location to friends, secondly they will be able to find their friends and thirdly they can find new places or businesses near to where they are.
For early adopters of social media these features are nothing new. For the past two years applications such as Foursquare and Gowalla have built up followings, allowing users to "check in" at places like bars and restaurants and earn rewards points for doing so.
However with Facebooks involvement, there is a good chance that location based social networking will finally go mainstream.
Nielsen research revealed last month that Facebook is the most popular social networking site in New Zealand with more than 1.8 million users. By contrast a review of the main location based networks Foursquare or Gowalla reveals less than 10,000 active New Zealand users.
Privacy advocates see the trend towards location based social network services as a cause for concern. They argue that by revealing their locations through their phones, people may be putting their own safety at risk. In addition, tech savvy burglars are likely to take advantage of any signals that show a user is not at home.
At the press conference Facebook downplayed concerns, stating that there would be privacy features built into the application to protect users and that Places was "a fun and interesting product."
Facebook Places service will launch immediately as an iPhone application in the US only, rolling out to other platforms and regions at a later date.
