Facebook Places has now been released in the US only and I’ve had a little time to play around with Facebook’s latest addition to its services. Firstly, Places can only be accessed via the Facebook iphone app and Facebook plans to release apps for other platforms including Android and Blackberry. Alternatively, you can access places via a brower at touch.facebook.com.

There are three flip sides to Places and I will discuss each individual as they are unique and offer different functionality depending who you are:

The End User:

The end user is me and you. We have a Facebook account and use the social networking web site to stay connected with friends and family. Facebook Places offers this facility to share our location with the people we have added as friends. You can also tag one another at the same location, or check in each other at the same location.

Local Business Owner:

Facebook Places is a local business owner’s vehicle for advertisement on the web for free. Places offers a locational based social side of the coin to help people share information and promote a business, offer discounts and loyalty bonuses for customers.

Developers:

Facebook has now released Places API, which will allow users to scrap data from checkins of their friends and their friends friends. Developers can surf the data in their applications to create a variety of social experiences, such as:

• A travel application that gives people the ability to see which of their friends have already been to the place they are visiting
• A conference application that makes it easy for attendees to find colleagues and connect with them
• An event application that enables attendees to see where their friends are at a concert

Facebook has stated that in the coming months they will offer additional location features through the Graph API and the Open Graph protocol, including the ability to check in with Facebook through your application and discover places nearby.

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