Today Facebook revealed its long-anticipated geolocation offering called “Places.” In many respects, Facebook’s offering doesn’t expand on the functionality you can find in current location-based services such as foursquare — you can check in at a place, share your location with friends, see who is nearby, and add a place.  In fact, the most important contribution Facebook is making to the geolocation social space is not in form but scale.  While foursquare counts around 2.5 million users in its base, Facebook has 500 million.  This means that Facebook is positioned to introduce the benefits of location sharing to a new and much wider audience.

Of course, providing users with a new feature is one thing, but getting them to adopt a new sort of social behavior is another.  Facebook has done much to ease the adoption process for users, starting with some smart decisions about privacy.  It is evident that Facebook has learned from past privacy missteps.  By default, when users check into a place, this information will only be shared with friends and not the whole world.  This reflects a different and more user-centric approach than Facebook has taken in the past. 

Of course, it's nearly impossible to launch any new social feature without some level of privacy concern, and it remains to be seen whether users will like or dislike the fact that they can be checked in by their friends.  Facebook says this is intended as an advantage — since not every person has an advanced smartphone, not every Facebook user can check himself or herself into a location for the time being;  by allowing people to check in their friends, more Facebook users can participate.  People can turn off the ability for friends to check them in, but by default this is permitted. 

Foursquare, the geolocation social tool, has been a media darling as of late.  Not only is it growing, but people innately understand the monetization model, which is not something you can say about every social site and tool.  As people “check in,” or report where they are to their networks, Foursquare serves them offers from nearby businesses.  It’s a win-win-win situation: Businesses can market to people who are able to immediately take action; Foursquare earns revenue; and users get valuable offers they can use.

But Starbucks’ current program on Foursquare may kill the goose that lays the golden eggs (or at least demonstrate how that goose may die a slow, lingering death of neglect).  I believe (and I’m curious if you agree) that Starbucks’ ubiquity combined with the offer’s difficult redemption is decreasing attention for Foursquare’s other offers.  If other large chains follow suit with similar promotions, those “Special Nearby” tabs within Foursquare’s mobile apps won’t get as much notice, and that means problems for advertisers on the Foursquare platform.

Going into Chirp, Twitter's first-ever developers conference, the natives were restless.  A string of announcements--from the release of Twitter's own Blackberry app to the acquisition of development firm Atebits--had some developers wondering where Twitter was going and what it all meant to them.  While Twitter's executive team didn't answer every question, they did outline a vision for future growth with a vigorous role for third-party developers.  For me, the role Twitter sees for itself and for developers was most clearly outlined in its discussion of "place."

Twitter clearly recognizes that our location is extremely relevant data that can yield substantial value for others who use (either directly or indirectly) the Twitter information network.  It's not just about where you are at every given moment, but what you're saying and doing while you're there. 

Ryan Sarver offered a compelling example of the power of place in his discussion about the New York Times' coverage of the Fort Hood tragedy.  A reporter turned to Twitter for real-time news and information but ran into a flood of retweets and expressions of sympathy and concern.  Then he entered "near Killeen, TX" and was able to see relevant tweets from first responders, soldiers and citizen journalists in the immediate area.  At Chirp, Twitter conveyed the importance of place and how geolocation will be a vital part of the Twitter experience.