Mobile Marketing Comes to the Mainstream | Facebook Places

Have you heard the interwebs buzzing about Facebook Places?  It looks like Mobile Marketing is finally coming to the mainstream audience disguised as a cool new feature called Facebook Places.

What is Facebook Places?

Now Facebook is offering their own version of Location Based Services which they are calling “Places.”  If you haven’t been following our series on mobile marketing, I recommend going back and brushing up on your Mobile Marketing vocabulary.  Watch this video to see how Facebook is describing this hot new feature.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6d9J44DMMg[/youtube]

But what about Facebook Places Privacy Settings?

OK, this is all brand new and the app isn’t even working for me yet- so I can’t speak about privacy settings until I’ve actually used it.  So why don’t you watch this video to see what the people over at FB said about their privacy settings.  I’ll write more about this (because I do have some concerns) in an upcoming post.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkpWKwqjBYw[/youtube]

Yeah, that’s cool – But What’s the point?

I know some of you may not be into sharing where you are –but think back as little as 12 months ago — Do you remember when people used to say, “Who cares what you’re doing?”  Yet here we all are on FB keeping up to date on what everyone around us is doing.

Watch this video to hear what Chris Cox (product management at FB) says about the future of Facebook Places.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z_ol0Ajzdo[/youtube]

Am I a hopeless romantic or an ego maniac?

I can’t figure it out.  When Chris explains how we’re tying our memories to places for future generations of our friends and family to share, I get all starry eyed.  It wasn’t too long ago that we had to rely on text books to document history, now with just a couple of clicks we’re making history.

The ego maniac in me wants be the first to check in to my favorites places kinda like a dog pees on a fire hydrant to mark his territory.

How does this tie into Mobile Marketing?

Want to know what this is really about?  Gathering more information about us, where we go, what we like, and putting together a better profile of our consumer behavior.  Yeah, all that romantic “making memories” crap is great – but it’s meaningless if you can’t make money off of it.

As soon as I’m able to start using this new app I’ll be able to speak more intelligently about it, but for now I just wanted to let you know what it was, what to expect, and what I thought about it.

Are you going to use Facebook Places?  Tell us why or why not in the comments section below.