Facebook recently announced its geotagging feature called Facebook Places. The product was introduced yesterday in the United States and will gradually roll out in other countries. The company is collaborating with several location-based companies, including Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, Booyah, and Localeze. Like other location-based services, Places already have existing locations and users can add new locations. The feature is intended for mobile use and Facebook has already launched the iPhone app.

Facebook Places Features

Users can share the following features on Facebook:

1. Check-In
2. Tag Friends with You
3. What are you doing: It is similar to status update. It updates your profile with the activity and if you have tagged a friend.

Facebook Privacy Setting

By default check-ins are visible to “Friends Only” but users can customize their privacy setting. By checking in you are giving Facebook permission to post it on your wall and News Feed. Privacy for Facebook Places includes:

• Places I check in to
• Include me in “People Here Now” after I check in: By checking the enable option anyone can see who are currently checked in at a location
• Friends can check me in to Places: Enabling this option allows your friends to check in at a place with them

Add or Report a Place

As mentioned before you can add a place. Facebook allows users to Flag a place for:

• Incorrect information
• Abusive
• Permanently closed
• Duplicate

I personally think that the feature needs some improvement. Earlier I tried to check-in at Resite Online. As Facebook did not have the Place available, I added it. It created a new local business page for Resite. We already had a Facebook page so it will be confusing to the users as there are two pages for the same business.

For more information visit: http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=1080