Facebook Wednesday gucci purse introduced "Places," its own location-sharing program that had been rumored for months. The program for mobile phones will lets its users "share where you are with your friends, see where your friends are and discover new places around you," said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO at a press conference.
But some say the bigger impact will be on Google. Evidence Louis vuitton replicaof that was clear Wednesday, with representatives from Foursquare, Gowalla and other location-sharing based sites at the press conference, giving Facebook huge props for starting the service. A Google rep was not present.
Mobile location-sharing programs — telling friends where you are when you're out at a bar or restaurant, for example — has seen huge growth in the past year. (Places for Android-based smart phones and for BlackBerrys is not yet louis bag out, although users can access the app on their phone's Web browser, Facebook said.)
Foursquare has been registering more than 1 million "check-ins" a week since February. In July, its membership reached 2 million users."There are different reasons people use Foursquare," said a spokesman for that company louis vuitton purses at the press conference. "Our badges, points system and mayorships" offer added benefits. Foursquare.
Facebook officials made a point of saying privacy will louis bags be protected with Places. The social networking site, with 500 million members worldwide, has long been under scrutiny for for its privacy practices.The addition of "Places," first for Apple's iPhone (with an app available Wednesday night).
A Facebook spokesman said Wednesday there will be a Uncle Andrew with roars privacy "widget" for Places, so that users can choose which friends and families can be in on location sharing. But disabling the sharing feature will require that users go to Facebook's privacy page, and it's an extra step many may not think to do.
"Facebook made some changes to its regular privacy practices to protect sensitive location-based information, such as limiting the default visibility of check-ins on your feed to 'Friends Only.' But it has failed to build in some Princess other important privacy safeguards," the organization said.
"In the world of Facebook Places, 'no' is unfortunately not an option. Places allows your friends to tag you when they check in somewhere, and Facebook makes it very easy to say 'yes' to allowing your friends to check in for you. But when it further back into comes to opting out of that feature, you are only given a 'not now' option (aka ask me again later). 'No' isn’t one of the easy options."
Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal wrote he has tested the new service, and "found it easy to use and reliable, with mostly logical privacy controls, an issue on which Facebook has been bruised in the past."Jules Polonetsky, The helmsman dream'blog a former AOL executive who now co-chairs the Washington-based Future of Privacy Forum, said that "Following the flaps created by earlier launches.ZMC