Have you heard the news??? Location services are all the rage! Stop the presses! This is gonna be big.
Of course, to the tech and social media savvy, Thursday’s introduction of Facebook Places piqued some interest, but it was something we all knew was coming. We’ve been using Foursquare and Gowalla for almost two years now, checking in for every cup of coffee at Starbucks, burger at Shake Shack and trip to New York Sports Club. It was only a matter of time before Facebook (and their 500 million users[!] got on board).
For the majority of our society, however, location services were still on the periphery of mainstream culture. Now, everyone with an IPhone and the Facebook app has been force fed location services, and the ubiquitous press coverage has forced others to pay attention, too. The idea (but not yet the act) of “checking in” when you go out is well on it’s way to saturation point.
Still don’t believe the hype? On Thursday, Foursquare ended up having the most successful day in the history of its service in terms of new signups. This on the same day that the largest social networking site in the world launched a feature that was supposed to put them on the same fast track to social networking obscurity experienced by Friendster and MySpace.
And with all of this hoopla, Facebook has delivered a service that is the definition of mediocre.
On the surface, it does everything that Foursquare does, but when you dig deeper, it simply doesn’t. While waiting for my drink at Starbucks this evening, I broke out my IPhone (sidebar: what else do people do while waiting for a drink at Starbucks?!) so I could check in on Facebook’s new Places feature.
I was greeted by a bare bones screen that did the job, but didn’t wow me. There was a list of nearby places for me to choose, and it was straightforward how to choose them.
Unfortunately, I was immediately at a loss. The list didn’t seem completely accurate (the top result was a couple of blocks away), and to make things worse, there were no addresses listed with any of the places. The lack of addresses doesn’t seem like a big deal - unless you’re checking in at a Starbucks.
As anyone living in a major city knows, there is pretty much a Starbucks every two blocks. So, if my Facebook Places feature shows the closest business as one that is a couple of blocks away, how do I know which Starbucks to choose? I’ll occasionally run into this issue on Foursquare, but I simply scroll down the list, check the address and select the proper location. That isn’t an option in Facebook Places.
For a moment, I was surprised by Facebook’s mediocre effort. Then I realized that the bare bones experience is most likely intentional, and part of a bigger strategy. Facebook realizes that a large number of Places users are going to be new to location services, and will need some time to get acclimated. What better way to do this than with a bare bones, straightforward execution?
Of course, power users are going to realize the same shortcomings as I did, and they’ll stick with Foursquare, or Gowalla. For now. Once Facebook gets the ball rolling with their 500 million users, the training wheels will come off. You can be sure that the type of features and innovations that Facebook is known for will be rolled out, and eventually they’ll win.
For now, Facebook is concentrating on feeding the hype machine and using Foursquare as a pawn on their way to social media domination. They’ll let users dabble with what is now their direct competition, but as soon as the act of “checking in” heads down the path of updating a status, or “liking” something, they’ll swoop in and offer something better.
Maybe I’m giving Facebook too much credit, but this mediocre rollout of a game-changing feature just seems fishy to me.
