Facebook Places: A Review

Earlier this week, Facebook rolled out “Places”, an update to the mobile version of its app. To quote Facebook’s official blog, Facebook allows its users to share “who, what, when … and now where, with Facebook Places.” There seems to be a lot of general confusion as to what Places is and isn’t, what it does and doesn’t do.

If you’re on Facebook — and who isn’t at this point — you know that the name of the game is sharing. From pictures and updates to virtual farms animals and high scores, Facebook is all about sharing parts of your life with the people you choose to share with. In that regard, Places is a way to share where you are, with whom you wish to. Like many aspects of Facebook, you can control who can see your Places updates from your profile. From your profile, simply click on Account > Privacy Settings and choose “Everyone”, “Friends”, or “Friends of Friends”.

Many of us were already doing this, but manually (“Having lunch at Taco Bueno!”) The only difference between that and Places is, Places uses your phone’s GPS location to provide a list of nearby places. From that list, you simply choose the proper location, tag any Facebook friends with you, add any additional comments (optional), and post. Keep in mind this is an entirely voluntary process. The app can’t automatically “place” you anywhere on its own. (Update: Places now notifies you when you are tagged in someone else’s Place update, and you are given the option to untag yourself from someone else’s Places posts.)

If there’s any controversial aspect of Places at all, it’s that you can tag other people in your own updates. When sharing your Place, you can tag any of your Facebook friends, announcing that they are with you. And if your friend didn’t want the world know he or she was hanging out with you … well, too bad. Then again, people have been doing this manually since the dawn of Facebook (“having lunch with Tim Dog”) so this is really nothing new. Plus, it might come in handy if I ever need an alibi for something …

I suppose the only question remaining regarding Places is, “Why?” Why would anyone want to share where they are at any given time? The simplest answer is, “because they want to.” I personally don’t think it’s any different than anything else we already share on Facebook. But above and beyond that, if you add yourself at a Place, you can see everyone else who has added themselves to that same place. In places like New York City or Chicago or San Francisco, where people may be in close proximity to one another, sharing your location might be a great way to meet up with your friends in real life. That’s less likely to happen here in Oklahoma City (which covers 620 square miles) but you never know. I could see perhaps going to the mall, updating my Place, and finding other people who are there at the same time. You never know.

One fault I’ve seen in Places is that the database is not completely populated. When the kids and I visited Pizza Hut in Yukon earlier this week, I found it missing from the database. Fortunately, adding new locations is very simple to do. You can also flag places that have closed down to get them removed from the database. In that aspect, it’s kind of fun to be part of building and molding the Places database. I do not know if there are any checks and balances to adding or removing locations from Places.

The only additional caveat is that Places, like anything else we share via social networking, should be used responsibly. Don’t tag friends that don’t want to be tagged, don’t tag your whole family as being out of town on vacation, and don’t tag yourself at a place you don’t want your spouse/boss/ex to know you visit, and thing’s should be just fine.