Geolocation comes to Facebook, finally
The web, especially the social web, is getting increasingly interested in your whereabouts. After “What are you doing?”, it’s now come to “What are you doing, and where are you doing it?”.
Twitter added support for geolocation metadata in its tweets quite a while back, which could allow people to see tweets from people in areas around them. Google’s Buzz also support metadata information in its messages, and can show Buzz posts from users around you as a layer in its Google Maps.
Facebook’s take on geolocation, which it calls “Places”. You can use the feature with the iPhone via the Facebook iPhone app, or the http://touch.facebook.com website if you have an HTML5 and geolocation capable phone, and as we’ve come to expect, you need to be in the USA. There you shall see a “Places” option which where you can tap the “Check In” button in order to see a list of nearby locations derived from your phones GPS data. You can select the location you are at – or add it if it isn’t already present– to have it posted on your wall.
Essentially, you can make a Facebook post which can include geodata and tag friends who are with you. Additionally you will be able to see an activity stream for each “Place”. This makes “Places” or physical locations equivalent to Pages and Profiles, as points of activity.