Facebook Places just went live with it’s very own Deals feature. This looks to me to be one more step towards crushing the competition. I personally am not a fan of consolidating my social activity with Facebook; I don’t trust them. Putting that aside I do think that Facebook places is an interesting concept now that a Places location can be tied to a Fan Page.
I think FB Places is good for business and it opens up an entirely new market for location based marketing.
Here is the screen I was shown for creating a deal.
Everything there looks pretty standard and straightforward I think this will be good for business.
Now having said that, Facebook Places isn’t sunshine and rainbows; there’s just one small, tiny problem…you guessed it, PRIVACY!
The Friend Deal is problematic for me because it incorporates a Facebook Places feature where you can tag friends in your check in.
The one feature of Facebook Places that doesn’t make ANY sense to me at all is tagging someone in your check-in. Why the hell can someone tag ME in THEIR check in? I have this feature disabled. There is NO point to it, it is absolutely an invasion of people’s privacy and it is the sole feature that bothers me on Facebook Places.
I don’t even understand the value of adding it as a feature, it just honestly makes me mad.