Will Facebook Places be the death of Foursquare and Gowalla?

...it's too early to tell Facebook's overall intentions but it's actually pretty amazing that it took Facebook so long to get into this game. Now that they have -  chances are that they will make everyone else irrelevant. Why?...simply because of their numbers. While competing services such as Gowalla and Foursquare require you to invite and connect with your friends, the fact is you still have to take the time out to do so and your friends have to cooperate by joining. Notwithstanding the fact that Foursquare offers Facebook Connect integration, it's not as easy as it seems as friends continuously ask me "Why are you spamming me with that Foursquare site invite?" Facebook Places will not have this problem.

While Foursquare and Gowalla offer services that enable users to enter tips for any given location (great for restaurants), along with popular game-like status features such as mayorship badges for frequent visitors, you can be sure that Facebook Places will add these features before long.

Given that Places is not up and functional as promised at launch yesterday and is still spitting out the error message "This feature will be available in your region soon", many of us have not had a chance to fully demo the functionality, but regardless, this will make Facebook more valuable than ever as it finally makes the jump towards connecting those close to us while out and about in the real world. I'll argue that this will in-fact become Facebook's most popular feature before too long.

How else might Facebook blow out this idea, especially with advertisers, remains to be seen - but history tells us that they will lay low until adoption is as ubiquitous as posting photos and then we can expect localized offers and messages from retailers, restaurants, hotels and airlines as we travel about and check into our favorite places, as we serendipitously hope to bump into friends or meet and make more friends of friends.

Either way, this is what Facebook was made for...and yes, this is pretty much the end of competing services outside of servicing niche markets.

Posted via email from Jared Hendler

Watch as Location Based Services free us from our screens!

With information overkill, hyper localization via mobile GPS may be the way to filter down what is most relevant to us on a real-time basis. Twitter is certainly planning on that from a news standpoint and will surely beat major media at their own game with localized news feeds. Google Buzz has added the service and I am certain that Facebook is sure to follow (potentially in partnership with FourSquare?).

Specialized applications like Meetmoi for dating or MeetGatsby (via Foursquare) for introducing like minded individuals spontaneously who are close by are starting to get traction. I have been using MeetGatsby myself over the last few days and have been fascinated by the potential of meeting random people with interests close to mine as I am out and about during the course of the day. Time will tell as to the value or distraction that this will bring. It will be crucial for companies like these to form partnerships in addition to fostering an open development community in order to build out unique offerings before they are made irrelevant by the big boys (Google, FB and Twitter) when this kicks in full force.

The only thing holding many of us back is the concern over privacy (once again!). I believe we will all 'get over it' as we realize the potential of push applications that capitalize on real-time technology to do the hard work for us behind the scenes. My excitement over this is driven by the hope that this will allow us to spend more time participating in the real world, as opposed to being glued to our screens in search of connections...

Altogether a good thing.

Twitter Wants to Know Where You're @ With Improved Geo-Location and Privacy Features

Google takes another stab at location-based services with Buzz

Posted via web from Jared Hendler