Facebook launches Places for location check-in which you would believe present a challenge to services like Gowalla, Yelp, and Foursquare but it looks like they are partnering. This is something that has been expected for some time now, and has become official tonight at their media event. Places is designed to solve three things:
- Help you see where you are
- Help you see who is around you
- Help you discover what is going on near you (like the party you’re not invited to)
A nice thing is you can tag friends that are with you as you check-in, either and instant alibi or being sold out.
It appears Facebook is taking and open approach to this feature providing and API to Places so Gowalla, Foursquare, Yelp and other services can partner. The long term impact on other services remains to be seen, but will bring more data into the Facebook universe.
The iPhone app will be available tonight and we can expect Android and BlackBerry apps to follow shortly.
[Source BGR]