Los Angeles — Foursquare, Gowalla and MyTown should be shaking in their buskins because Facebook is reportedly launching a new feature later this month that would let its users share their location on Facebook about exactly where you are, in addition to what you are doing and thinking, which would make these fledgling services irrelevant, according to code dug up by TechCrunch.
The latest news on this front comes from Advertising Age, which claims that the new location feature would be released later this month and let people automatically include their current locale in their postings if they choose to do so.
Some of your Facebook friends might already be enjoying this: Posting their current location to their profile page. They are most likely using a service called Foursquare to tell their friends where they are at any given time.
McDonald’s is among the first advertisers to jump on board, and is apparently in the works to use the location feature as a way to promote itself, according to another story in Ad Age. The fast-food chain’s Facebook app would let users tell people they were at McDonald’s, giving the company the opportunity to put ads about its food products on your Facebook wall. That might not sound entirely appetizing, but there is plenty of excitement online about these location-based features.
Mobile phone apps like Foursquare and Gowalla have touted them amidst tech’s early adopters, who “check in” to their favorite stores, pubs and restaurants to earn points and merit badges. But Facebook is planning to take this idea to the next level, bringing it to a user base of 400 million people.
In a further glance at the new dimension, TechCrunch found a site called touch.facebook.com, which it mentioned is a mobile version of Facebook equipped for the iPhone and Android smartphones. In examining the site’s JavaScript code, TechCrunch found a tab called Places that is not yet enabled and speculated that this may be the new location feature.
Facebook has not disclosed any details on the location feature but did confirm its development in a statement Monday to CNET News.
“We have been functioning on a location feature for a while but do not have immediate plans to announce anything. We will let you know when we have more details to share.”
And then, there is the problem of privacy. Bitten by fears and complaints about customer privacy and new features that are turned on by default, Facebook is likely to offer the location feature on an opt-in basis, according to Ad Age.
For many the new service might just be a bit too creepy and stalker friendly.