Facebook to Launch Location Features Next Month

ACCORDING to The New York Times, Facebook is set to incorporate location to its service in a move that could provide brands and businesses with a new location-based and contextual advertising medium.

The social networking site is set to use location in two ways: firstly via its own features for sharing location and secondly through APIs to let apps like Foursquare offer location based services to users.

Facebook will roll out its location features to a user base of more than 400 million 100 million of which access the site via mobile regularly – presenting a major opportunity for mobile marketing.

Anticipating the introduction of location based services, Facebook updated its privacy policy in November, stating: “When you share your location with others or add a location to something you post, we treat that like any other content you post.”

The move towards location will see Facebook going head-to-head with Google in the fight for small-business advertising.

In 2009, Google launched Google Latitude to let users see where their friends are. Twitter, has also added an option to include location data with messages.

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