Social Media Blog: So Where Are You? Facebook & Twitter Ready to Implement Location Feature

As if the "bare all" online is not enough, now users can share their location with their friends online any time. Facebook says it will add a "friend location information" which will be introduced at a developer conference in April 2010. So what will this friend location do? Basically you can where you are when you updated your status with your friends.

Twitter plans to do just that with its geolocation feature in it's site soon, perhaps to beat Facebook to it?
 
So why is this "location" sharing so important that Facebook and Twitter are going live with it? And you know that others will follow suit, right?

Well, mainly because users can get localized news and find local people in their area. The power of this will help businesses seeking to do localized marketing.
 
But as I eluded to above with my "bare-all" comment, won't this geolocation create additional vulnerability for social network users? Criminal activity is growing on social networks so is it really wise for social networks to introduce a feature which will drive more criminal behavior?
 
When and how will social networks balance "access" with "safety"?

 

Tags: ,

Leave a Reply