Why Create Facebook Places?

This new Facebook application works by enabling users to "check in" at bars, restaurants, stores and other locations. Friends of that user will know their exact geographic location. This means Facebook can now broaden its core goal, bringing people together online, into the physical worldto apparently give users an even richer real-world experience.

At the launch of Places, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg presented how the application will benefit Facebook users. It provides a means to realise and organise real-time meetings with others as well as a virtual documentation of our memories. Zuckerburg shared the example of a person visiting a beach and finding out that her parents had their first kiss at that location via Facebook

"One day, when it's done, you'll go to a page

and on that page will be our collective memory [...] that's dope.."

It also includes some novelty aspects intrinsic to Facebook – you can become mayor of a location if you visit it the most. Also Facebook money is generated through loyalty schemes- virtual money that has real world purpose

I suspect that Places is disguised marketing device to gather consumer data. Consistent of course, with Facebook’s other core goal to bring in advertising revenue, and location based services like Places have a big part to play in the future of online advertising

There is no question that knowing where people are and what places they visit will be valuable data for Facebook and its advertisers. It will permit Facebook to better understand individuals’ wants and needs not only based on what they 'like' but on their actual behaviours. Ads can then be personalised and shaped to a user.

Another key benefit is the social nature of Facebook, which allows connections with individual consumers to spread to friends via notifications and newsfeeds to provide extra publicity.

Knowing and individuals Geographic placement enables Facebook to exert ads relevant to their location. Location services enable them to deliver a compelling offer or reward when consumers are at the point of decision. When ads are pushed to people the moment they are engaged with something they have a greater effect on customers. Imagine you pass by McDonalds, Places phone application can send you a coupon at the exact moment you are passing by that store to entice the individual inside

Marketers can also use the data gathered via places to cross reference things that people 'like' and locations that they frequent, and if they see large correlations, they can then set up billboards, other advertisements or shops in that location.

So what do you think is the motive behind Facebook? Is Facebook Places new kind of social tool or a disguised means of obtaining consumer data?

Please comment below!