There is seemingly a “technological revolution” released every second day in the digital industry, however every now and again something pops up which really makes people take note.
With the release of Facebook Places last night, it seems we are really entering the next phase of social media, a more diverse level of real-world interaction, as well as a completely new level of targeted marketing.
Places takes the existing concept of applications such as FourSquare and takes it to where people already are, Facebook.
While primarily aimed at iPhone users for now (Android and Blackberry versions are planned), Places introduces location-based services to the world’s most popular social network.
Places enables users to share their current location with friends, find out where their friends are, and discover new places of interest. Users can also add their own places of interest to the platform, whether it be a business or a residential address.
In the same manner as FourSquare, users can “check-in” to places, as well as tag people who are at a particular place with them.
As with the release of most new technology of this kind, there will always be concerns about privacy. Traditionally, it was easy to alleviate these concerns by only making the information available to (and from) users who had opted in to use the service. Where Facebook face issues with their implementation is that, by default, a user can “check-in” somebody else (without their approval or permission) into a venue. There is potential for this to get rather messy and I foresee this being one of the first changes made to the privacy settings within the application.
So while this just seems like a new aspect of already existing Social Media technology, it is the “openness” of the Facebook application which is exciting for us in the digital industry.
From tomorrow, Facebook are releasing an API which will enable developers to “pull” data from the Places application, which really does open a whole new world of possibility in terms of targeted marketing. Being able to track people’s behaviours, regular hangouts and social activeness, amongst other things enables us to truly reach the audience whom are most likely to be interested in a particular product.
While this has huge benefits for companies advertising strategies, it should also benefit the consumer in that they will ideally only be receiving and viewing advertising which is most relevant to them.
Unfortunately for us outside of the U.S, Places is not available to us at the moment. It is intended to be rolled out internationally, however no release dates have been revealed.
We are getting closer and closer to the reality of being able to go to a random venue and meet new people with similar interests via our phones, but I truly wonder if this is a good or bad thing in the long run. We already hide behind technology so much that it would be a real shame to take the face-to-face interaction out of going out in public all together.
I think new technologies such as this are really exciting and enable us, as marketeers, to reach our audience on a new level, whilst on the flipside also enable us as consumers to better connect to both our peers and brands.However, I believe, as with all technology, it should be approached with considered usage and should never been seen as a replacement to face-to-face interaction.
Reference: Mashable: Social Media News