Facebook vs Foursquare – Check-In Here for the Battle Royale

If you’re one of the 500 million current subscribers to Facebook, then you probably noticed a new feature called “Places” added to the social network.  Places is a geo-social tool that allows people to “check-in” at specific locations, alerting their friends to where they are at that moment. If this sounds like a passing novelty or just another news feed distraction, then perk up your ears, because the industry is looking at location-based marketing as a future behemoth and a major game changer.

Launched in March 2009, Foursquare is set to effortlessly rack up 3 million users this month, quickly becoming the frontrunner in the location-based social network game, but Facebook, with over 7% of the world’s population already using its service, hopes to use its might and muscle to become the new king of the digital streets… and buildings, and restaurants, and concerts, and nightclubs, and all of your other likely checked-in spots. But here are three reasons why, under each company’s current configurations, Foursquare could be the Neo to the Facebook Matrix…

1)  If you haven’t heard, people like fun things.

There’s no doubt about it, Foursquare is just way more fun than “Places” for Facebook. With Foursquare, you get kitchy prompts, cute icons, weirdly awesome titles, beautiful user interface, polished design, and more. Alternatively, Places is built for utility, outfitted in the typical Facebook minimalism, and simply feels rigid and uninteresting. It’s like comparing a Sansa with an iPod Touch or choosing between drafting Tom Brady and Matt Schaub. Sure, they’re both gonna get you 30+ TDs and over 3,500 passing yards, but only one of them has Giselle.

Facebook has always been built around the concept that the user creates and shares their own interesting content, via news feed updates, uploading photos, and other information that their friends will want to consume, but with Places, I feel rather disconnected from the tool. Sure, I can check-in rather effortlessly, but where’s the mojo?  I want to add my notes, tips, and recommendations at the places I visit. I want to see what my friends think about the venue. I want to see nearby specials and other perks.  Ultimately, when I’m using Places, I want Foursquare.

2) We all like a pat on the back.

Who ever thought people could be incentivized by silly titles, meaningless badges, and other similar absurdities? Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai did, and their creation of “Mayorships” and the now infamous “Badges” are two of the main catalysts for Foursquare’s immense popularity. As Sharp Dressed Brand blogged earlier this year, Foursquare has even created real, wearable “badges” that users can purchase and wear on their clothing, laptop bag, or wherever else they need to flaunt their newly-acquired geo-social street cred. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, Foursquare simply “rewards” users who check-in consistenly with digital badges that reflect a portion of that user’s location-based behavior.

For example, check in at four different locations in one night and get awarded with the “Crunked” badge Or if you check-in to three different venues that are tagged with the word “karaoke,” then Foursquare rewards you with the “Don’t Stop Believin’” badge, a must have for the Journey faithful. Foursquare also allows users to tweet or share across Facebook their newly acquired tokens of awesomeness, further spreading the goodness and promoting Foursquare at the same time. Oh, and if you’re the one with the most check-ins at a specific location, get your inaugural speech ready, because you’ve just won yourself a mayorship at that locale.  (I’m often the mayor of some of my most-visited places, including Local Taco and 12 South Taproom. Boo Ya). Mayorships often come with perks as well, like retail discounts or other freebies.

Places for Facebook does not have any sort of rewards-based strategy at the moment, and I would assume that if they tried a similar “Badge” strategy, they would face a swell of copycat backlash from the tech press. There’s no doubt that offering actual monetary rewards is definitely in Zuckerberg’s masterplan for Places, but for now, Foursquare is the king of rewards, even if it is just valueless awesomeness.

3) Facebook is really starting to creep us out, man.

So every time I check-in using Places, I swear I hear the haunting voices of Vega Choir performing “Creep” by Radiohead.  (The choir-boy rendition plays during the movie trailer for “The Social Network,” the film about Facebook’s rise coming to theaters this Fall). Facebook has already started to creep people out in all sorts of ways. Now they want to know where you are, and they want you to tell them, all with the simply click of a finger. Sure, Foursquare does the exact same thing, capturing your real-time location data in hopes of exploiting it for future monetary gain, but they still seem new, naive, and innocent in the whole process. Facebook has already revealed its willingness to share consumer data at will, and with Mark Zuckerberg claiming he wants to make the world “more open,” the potential for the misuse of such data without adequate consumer consent almost seems inevitable.

But what makes Facebook Places really feel just downright “icky” is the ability to “check-in” friends at locations. Just as friends can upload any photo they want and “tag” their friends that are in the picture, linking that image directly to the friend’s profile, Places ultimately does the same thing, but this time, its with location data. Sure, you can change your privacy settings to disallow this sort of involuntary location tagging, but in typical Facebook fashion, this setting defaults to “on” and is buried within the a deluge of other account settings.

I would assume that Facebook’s thought process behind the Places adoption curve is similar to their previous experience with the Newsfeed, a once controversial addition to the user experience. Facebook probably believes that, in time, as the world becomes “more open,” people will simply get used to such geo-locational technology and their voluntary (and involuntary) involvement with it, and it will fade into the ever-evolving “social norms” of the Facebook world.  I actually don’t doubt Mr. Z on this perception, but I still have that “Don’t Talk to Strangers” feeling in my gut when I think about where Places might be headed, and because of Facebook’s track record on user privacy, I’d much rather have Foursquare leading this social change.

Think I’ve got it wrong?  Do you love Places for Facebook?  Let me know!