Starting next month Facebook's 400 million users are going to begin to see a new type of status update, one which carries geo-location. With the success of other geo-location players like Foursquare, Facebook is ready to take the wraps off their geo-location status updates. Facebook has said that this feature will be an opt-in and we hope not an opt-out.
The New York Times reported that In preparation for the introduction, Facebook updated its privacy policy last November. The new policy states: “When you share your location with others or add a location to something you post, we treat that like any other content you post.”
One of the people familiar with the project said that the company was not trying to beat the smaller location-based social networks, such as Loopt, Foursquare and Gowalla.
Instead, Facebook wants to go head-to-head with Google in the fight for small-business advertising. Facebook redesigned its business pages last year, with the hope of offering more features for small-business owners. According to Facebook, the Web site currently hosts more than 1.5 million local businesses from around the world.
