Has Facebook’s Places Won The Location Based Checkin’ Race?
Gowalla, Foursquare, and the newest kid on the block Facebook Places have all been fighting for control of the location based checkin services. The idea is to check in everywhere that you go, so that your friends know where you are and can join you if you are close to them. This has caught on with the Web 2.0 crowds and have grown to a whole new level. Now the business’ can buy advertising on the services, and if you checkin at the advertised place you can get discounts or special deals for checking in. Coming this Saturday the 20th and Sunday the 21st if you go to any Chipotle and check in via Facebook Places you can get a buy one get one free burrito. Seeing the amount of people who are attending this event on Facebook it has been very popular. Chipotle has created an event on Facebook and started inviting people to show up and check in. As of 2:10Am on Thursday the 18th there are 9,990 people attending this event.
Think about it Facebook has essentially won the location based services, due to the effect that all smartphone users are in the know and want to keep up to date with their Twitter and Facebook information. All Facebook applications on smartphones now have Places on it, and can participate with out adding a 3rd party app. Facebook is already installed on most smartphones and you after you update your status on Facebook you can checkin your current location.
My opinion: Facebook Places has won the Location Based services.
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