I have been thinking about Facebook Places over the past couple of days. Though I have yet to try it since it has not been made available in Canada, I am interested to see how it differs from Foursquare. Or, more accurately, how I will use it differently, how brands might use it differently and how it might co exist with Foursquare.
In my mind, I find it useful to view location based services and what they offer through two distinct lenses. The first is, of course, the lens of PEOPLE that use these services. The second is the PLACES themselves, the actual locations in which we check in. Sure, it is an obvious distinction, but here is how I see some of the implications when we think of these two lenses as they apply to what is happening NOW versus what has happened in the past, or THEN. In other words, how do these services play out in how they deliver value right now, in real time, and how does that differ from how value accrues over time? And how is that different for people and places?
Here is my rudimentary chart:
I. Places, Now
This is the data that is made available in real time about what is currently popping at a given location. It is the basic role of Foursquare, as far as Places are concerned; animating the present. How many people are right here, right now at this place? Think of, say, a bar or club, and in many ways this is pretty obvious, people have been doing it with text messages or by telephone for ages. I know that as a DJ this is a behaviour that we saw evolve through the medieval ages (the 1990s, as people would rifle off text messages to their friends upon walking in the club to let them know if the party was happening.
Of course, the present is most definitely vital to location based services, but it is far from everything. Making use of the real time information that is being provided is a huge benefit for places, especially commercial places, but it is different than the long term breadth and depth of information and data that location services can provided. More on that below, but Yelp is just one starting point as an example.
2. Places, Then
I think of this as the layers of meaning attached to locations over time. Yes, much of this can be, and is, commercial in nature. Things like loyalty programs, CRM type stuff. Huge for business. But I think it is quite telling that the example used by one of the Facebook developers when Places was launched was of a beach that you were at, and discovered that this was the place where your parents had their first kiss. How sweet!
This hints at the long term project and goal that transcends the present, commercial or otherwise, and is the beginning of an underlying digital archive of information and meaning attached to physical locations, or places. I should say, it is a beginning, instead of the beginning. There is a lot of interesting work being done by the folks at Bing Maps, for instance, to develop rich layers of meaning on city maps. But given the sheer size of Facebook, this project can take off in a very natural, mass way, by making it part of the regular social stuff we share with friends.
So, in contrast to Foursquares game mechanic driven focus on what is going onnow, I think Places strength will be in building meaning over time for locations. This is a lofty goal, but as long as the behaviour of checking in becomes adopted and second nature, it will happen given the sheer size of Facebook. Here is how Augie Ray from Forrester put it,
Soon, the local restaurant or hiking trail may have as rich a personality as do the people on Facebook, not because everyone has visited but because your friends have. And in the end, isn’t that what we really care about? Not who is mayor of our local coffee shop, but what our friends did, said, and liked when they were there before us
3. People, Now
When Foursquare launched, it was described as one part social city guide, one part mobile friend finder. For users, the mobile friend finder is exactly the benefit of real time location data. Knowing that your buddies are drinking at the bar around the corner from where you are right now is compelling, and at its best, this is where Foursquare and the other services shine. It is why unlocking badges is such an important engine to the game. And though you are encouraged to leave tips or reviews for your friends or others about places, it really is one of the lesser used functions. The focus is on the now, the game and collecting badges. Indeed, the whole idea of the resetting leaderboard underscores the inherent temporal logic of Foursquare.
4. People, Then
This is where Facebook has the biggest opportunity. The goal is to make checking in and the social relevance of location on par with the many other social behaviours and interactions we already share on Facebook, like tagging each other in pictures or posting on each others wall.
This is from the Facebook Places page:
If you're already using Places, it's like you checked in yourself without having to do a thing. If you're not using Places yet, it's just like being mentioned in a status update.
Putting the check in in the wider context of social behaviours we are already familiar with will be a huge accomplishment if they can pull it off, and if we actually adopt it as users, because we will have the potential of seeing a lot of rich meaning emerge over time for how we relate with places in the real world. This can be incredibly relevant to our friends and network.
Part of this relevance will be in the now, so that we know where are friends are in real time, but in contrast to Foursquare, that relevance will also grow and emerge over time as it is woven in to the fabric of our social behaviours. Or, as the clever Facebook put it, the where joins with the who, what, when. Smart.
Thinking back to that first kiss on the beach example provided by the Facebook developer, it is worth noting that he intended it to show how Places will be meaningful twenty years down the road, as we develop the shared social history of location awareness with our friends and network.
With respect to brands and commercial applications, I think that Facebook might have got it right this time around. Instead of jamming an intrusive and strange interaction down our throat, like Beacon, it is banking on first socializing the check in among users so that it becomes second nature. I suspect that they are purposely waiting to roll out commercial applications because job one is to acclimatize Facebook users to using location features and discovering the many ways that they can deliver value, over time, in ways that go beyond just collecting loyalty points or a free latte.
Source - Chroma
Tagging reality is not new, but will be much better done with iPhone. Here's how it will work. You take a picture of a landmark, then comment and add tags. The phone will automatically geo-tag it and send the picture to a photo sharing service on the Web. Now anyone in the world can find your picture by exact geo location, or by its tags. Reality tagging will be like a distributed Google Earth, but for pictures.
Even better than tagging landmarks, you will be able to use iPhone to tag people. You can already take a picture and assign it to a contact. It is just a matter of time before these pictures will available to a search engine. Doing it on the phone will be quick and fun. In a couple of years the problem that we described in 
Reality recognition will be fueled by reality tagging and advanced image recognition. Imagine going on a hike and coming across a tree that you have not seen before. You will point iPhone at the tree and instantly a Wikipedia page about it will load. Or imagine that it's your first time in New York City. You point an iPhone at the Chrysler building (because you think that it is the Empire State Building) and again information about the landmark will be paged to your iPhone.
Today's social networks exist on the internet, but mobile technology is going to bring it to the physical world. You will be able to walk into a restaurant, open up your iPhone and see a list of your friends who have been to the place. You can flip through their comments and ratings, share comments on the menu - all from the palm of your hand. Similarly, standing next to a painting in the Louvre, you will be able to instantly find out what your friends thought of it. Looking at this broadly, as we discussed 
Travel is one of the most fun things we do in life and one of the most innovative businesses. People love tours and tour guides who tell them about the landmarks and history of new places. Now imagine having personalized tours of any location of the world available. With the touch of a button, information about your current location will appear in your hand. Even better, the tours will be custom tailored to you, since software will know your tastes and travel preferences.
Travel is fun, but not as much fun as games. With the latest spike in social games, we are sure to see interesting activity in mobile games as well. And with the iPhone, we will be able to play games that take place in both the physical and digital worlds. The clues will be scattered over the Internet and cities such as NYC. With your iPhone you can navigate your way through this fun physical and mental challenge, showing off your knowledge of the web and NYC.
Casual gaming is especially on the rise these days, fueled by social networks. Applying this model to mobile devices is particularly interesting since it enables people to tap into, not web-based, but fully-fledged 3D games - anywhere. The possibilities range from setting the mood of a game based on the surroundings, to connecting players based on geo location. And even without tying the games to the physical world, the fact that people can tap into the network at any time is game changing (pardon the pun).
The business world is also going to benefit from mobile innovation. Soon credit cards will become software. You will walk into a store and to pay, you simply choose a credit card button. The iPhone will communicate securely with the cash register in the store, via Blue Tooth or Wi-Fi. The safety of the transaction will be ensured via biometrics. For example, a clerk in the store might ask you to place a randomly selected finger onto the screen of your iPhone to verify that the phone belongs to you (assuming that all phones are securely initiated in the store and may not be reset).
We wrote 
Another piece of paper that is coming to an end is the business card. More and more people connect via LinkedIn these days, but they still exchange business cards when they meet. Palm did a good job early on of solving this problem - the business card could be beamed between the two devices. iPhone is likely to bring the digital business card exchange back in fashion and even make it big. This generation of software will automatically add the cards to contacts and connect the two of you on LinkedIn.
The medical industry uses the most advanced software when it comes to diagnostics, but also uses the most outdated ones when it comes to record keeping. Having your medical history available on the mobile phone will be a great way to enable all of your doctors and pharmacies to better communicate around your health. Because medical records are still mostly in paper, often doctors are not aware of all the treatments and drugs that a patient is taking. Having a simple, portable way to move your medical history around would make things much simpler.
The last two applications have to do with shopping. The first one is browsing things in the physical world and instantly buying them online. The experience of browsing books on Barnes and Nobles is different; and for most of us is superior than browsing on Amazon. But prices are better online, so we typically end up taking notes and then buying online. With iPhone it will be possible to take a picture of a book in the store and have it immediately appear in your Amazon shopping cart. The same can apply to many things, including clothing, houseware, etc.
If you were be open to it, stores would love to compete for your business. If you are about to buy a camera at BestBuy and there is a Circuit City near by, they would be willing to win your business by bidding a lower price. Imagine pointing the phone to a camera and getting instant bids from neighborhood stores. Sure you can do this now online, but a lot of people still buy the old fashioned way - by first holding the thing in their hands.