As every iLover knows, Facebook recently added Facebook Places to their iPhone. However instead of choosing to partner with their frenemy Google, Facebook instead is allowing Bing to power its location feature.
And, while location-based services like this are certainly interesting to me I’m writing this for you because Facebook is using Bing Maps to pinpoint everyone’s location-based experiences on Facebook.com. […]
Select the Places button, find the location where you are and check-in. Just like that, the check-in will flow to your profile on Facebook.com complete with a Bing Map, a pin of your location and any commentary you’ve added to your check-in. Places also includes the ability to see where your friends have checked in, a link to get directions to a place (via Bing Maps) and a Like button for the respective place page. (Bing Community Blog)
While it’s no surprise Facebook chose Bing over Google (due to the latter’s upcoming social network), doing so may have handicapped the service as Bing via iPhone is only available for users within the US, despite the fact that Facebook has a large international audience.
Unless Bing plans on expanding their mobile feature beyond the US borders soon, Facebook’s places will probably fail to be as powerful as Twitter Places (the latter which choose Google Maps for their service).
Although Facebook places has the potential of making location statuses popular among the masses on a scale yet to be seen by any social network, its America only limitation may keep Facebook from being adopted globally (which may benefit rivals like Twitter and the upcoming Google Me).
Originally posted on August 19, 2010 @ 11:16 am
WHAT THE HOLY FUCK IS FACEBOOK DOING USING BING INSTEAD OF SOMETHING USEFUL LIKE GOOGLE MAPS WITH STREETVIEW. DO THEY NOT REALISE THAT GOOGLE MAPS IS THE BEST?
WHY DONT THEY WANT TO MAKE IT BETTER FOR ITS USERS AND WOULD GIVE US THE SHIT BING SERVICE INSTEAD. FUCKING HELL.