Facebook Places and Foursquare: who'll own "location"?
Facebook yesterday announced their offering in the geolocation "check-in" space -- a new feature called Places. The company also said it will be working to integrate with the two leading players in the field: Foursquare and Gowalla.
Both Foursquare and Gowalla have been on a tear, adding users by leaps and bounds (especially Foursquare.)
But how will these two darlings fare with Facebook, the 800 pound gorilla, now playing in their space?
Personally, I think you'll start to see new subscribers to Foursquare and Gowalla start to slow down in coming months -- unless those two services can find dramatic new ways to differentiate themselves. (I like Michael Gartenberg's analysis of the Facebook Places announcment.)
In the meantime, I bet you'll start to see businesses experimenting with ad and marketing campaigns on Facebook Places (and shifting their efforts from Foursquare) since so many are already running Facebook campaigns to begin with.
At the end of it all, my prediction is that in 12 months or so, Facebook just buys off either Foursquare or Gowalla, fully integrates them into the Facebook platform, and the other just fades away.
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Comments
Interesting move by Facebook. And seems like it may be an actually helpful/fun app. Although, the security feature about minors not being able to see anyone except their friends won't do any good for safety, as long as adults can see minors, even if they're not their friends. I hope the Facebook crew took care of this, but who knows...given their security track record.
Posted by: Dave | August 19, 2010 12:09 PM
"At the end of it all, my prediction is that in 12 months or so, Facebook just buys off either Foursquare or Gowalla, fully integrates them into the Facebook platform, and the other just fades away."
I really hope not. It may seem counterintuitive, but my foursquare and Google Latitude friends lists are much smaller than my Facebook friends list, and I like that I can choose whether to share my checkins across services on a case by case basis. I haven't checked out "Places" yet, but I get the feeling Facebook won't give me that option.
Posted by: Laya | August 20, 2010 10:49 AM