Facebook Places

A couple of weeks ago Facebook announced the latest service in their social networking scheme, Places. It allows you to ‘check-in’ using your iPhone or the mobile web and post your location to your Facebook profile. You can also tag friends and see who is nearby. I asked my students- college freshmen- what they thought of Facebook Places and got some pretty good replies. Let’s take a look!

Will/Do you use it? Why or why not?

The overwhelming answer here was no because they don’t want people to know exactly where they are all the time. Some thought it would be cool just to see who else is around, but overall they did not like that friends are able to tag them at locations, that it’s on by default, and they felt it’s unnecessary.

My thoughts: I used it a couple of times over the weekend and I liked it. I am also a foursquare user and use some discretion with where I check in. I also knew about the service right when it was announced and know how to change the privacy settings.

Do you have privacy concerns? What are they?

Most of the concerns came with my students unknowingly being tagged at locations, even if they don’t want others to know where they are. The consensus seems to be that they are friends with acquaintances that they’d rather not tell where they are (something I can also attest to). A couple of students brought up the interesting point of privacy for younger kids. There are already a lot of predators on the Internet, and Places  makes it much easier to track kids’ whereabouts.  They brought up the point that if they didn’t even know about the new feature/privacy settings, what is the likelihood that someone younger does?

My thoughts: Pretty much the same as my students. Again, I knew about Places from the get go and could amend my privacy settings. For someone who doesn’t know about them, it’s a pretty big breach of security.

Is Facebook over-stepping their boundaries?

There was somewhat of a split on this question. Those who answered, “No they are not,” cited that you could choose to use it if you’d like, and that people will definitely use it. If people don’t want to, they can disable it. Those who answered, “Yes they are,” seldom said they are because it’s an unnecessary feature, but went more to the to fact that Facebook did not do a very good job of notifying all users of the new feature the same way they have with other features or redesigns. The uninformed user is left out in the cold as far as their privacy is concerned.

My thoughts: I don’t think they are- if you want to use it, use it. If you don’t, disable it. However, I can see where the students who said yes are coming from. It hadn’t dawned on me that if you don’t read the Facebook Blog or other tech blogs, you probably didn’t know about Places. Facebook should have added an alert to the top of the page like they have done so many times before telling users about Places, it’s implications, and how to shut it off.

Can you see it being useful? Why/why not?

This one yielded some interesting answers. Some flat out said that it would not be useful, and that it’s unnecessary. However, most students felt that in the right situation, it could be useful. “In case of an emergency where you can’t find someone” seemed to be a popular one, however during the discussion the point was brought up that if you’re updating your status on Facebook, why not just call or text someone. Of-course, if the person’s phone died and you wanted to get their last location, that might be a different story. If you want to meet up with someone you didn’t know was there was also a popular one, and probably the most practical. The most interesting answer was, “Yes- parents can use it to keep tabs on their kids.”

My thoughts: I think here there were some very good answers- I hadn’t thought of parents keeping tabs on their kids- but there was also some narrow-mindedness. I have a good amount of friends, but only a small fraction of phone numbers from those friends (not counting the Facebook Phonebook). Furthermore, I wouldn’t think to call all of them/tell all of them I’ll be out in a particular area. I think finding people nearby is a very cool feature, especially if you at a big ticket event, like a baseball  game or a concert (as some students mentioned). This could also be a very good way to start a conversation about new places. “Hey I saw you were at X yesterday. What did you think?”

All-in-all, Facebook’s heart is in the right place here (of-course, they are probably looking at money from location-aware ads as well). The question is whether their head was when they rolled Places out. I read an article a few weeks ago about how Facebook needs to grow up, and there is some truth to that. They keep making the same mistakes about privacy settings and product roll outs (at-least the privacy settings were here at launch this time). Though while these things will enrage some people, I don’t think they will stop people from using Facebook…for now.