Bijan Sabet

One non-techie perspective on Facebook Places vs FourSquare

Last week Facebook launched Places. Their response to foursquare.

I use FourSquare along with Twitter. They are different - sometimes standalone and sometimes I use them together. I’ve been using them since early on and I use them heavily

But I fully realize that I’m an early adopter. So I pay close attention to how my wife uses new apps. She’s a “normal” user. Not bleeding edge. (n.b. I actually dislike the label “normals” which I’ll get into in a future post).

Anyway Lauren does use Twitter and FourSquare. And she’s a big Facebook user.

Her foursquare network is a small subset of her Facebook network and also includes some folks that aren’t in her Facebook graph.

Earlier today we were at the Wicked Oyster for breakfast in Wellfleet. I checked in on FourSquare. Lauren reached for her phone and shrugged, “Oh, left my iPhone back at the house” (she knows how to relax on vacation better than me).

So I then checked into the Wicked Oyster on Facebook and tagged Lauren in as well. I then told her how Facebook pages worked along with friend tagging.

Her response: “I don’t like that”

Its clear that Lauren wants to manage her privacy. She knows what’s she’s getting into with twitter (all public). And her FourSquare network is carefully designed. But her immediate reaction to friend tagging on Facebook was pretty negative. “so everyone I’m friends with on Facebook will know where I am ?”

I told her she can turn off the friend tagging setting on Facebook places.

It’s pretty clear she’s gonna do just that.