Facebook Places = pleaserobme.com

It's been a geeky day, so please forgive me in advance for this mini-rant. But I can't not say something about Facebook's new Places service. Blame my analyst's DNA.





Facebook Places works more or less like Foursquare and Gowalla, and it essentially involves mobile phone-wielding users "checking in" whenever they're out and about. The operative goal is to use online location-based tools as a means of connecting in real life. The revenue-based goal is to allow advertisers to narrowly target folks most likely to bite.



I get the zeitgeist of location based services (LBS) and I completely understand how Facebook needs to find new ways to convert users (500 million and still growing fast) and traffic into hard dollars. But call me cynical: I don't believe a company that's had so much difficulty internalizing the basic concepts of end-user privacy and confidentiality can suddenly be fully trusted to do the right thing as it ups the ante to LBS. We're handing over even more sensitive information than ever, and I just don't feel warm fuzzies over Facebook's ability to keep things fair and balanced for all.



The other basic issue related to LBS - that folks who know I'm taking out a book from the library Right Now will correctly deduce that my house is empty and thus rather vulnerable to burglary - is something we can dig into more thoroughly another day. For now, I'll assume you're not terribly interested in the minutae of my day-to-day, routine travels. So if you bump into me at the grocery, it'll be because of pure happenstance.



Your turn: Do you do Foursquare or any other LBS-type services? What say you?