Facebook Places Gives Geo-Location the Ultimate Focus Group

The reason I'm glad Facebook finally launched its geo-location tool, Facebook Places, is so that most us can finally get this business of checking in at different locations out of our systems and move on.

I say that partly in jest, but, since Facebook has roughly 200 times more users than Foursquare (more than 500 million registrants vs. about 2.5 million), Facebook Places has the capacity to focus-group geo-location in a way that services like Foursquare and Gowalla can only dream about. While, for some, geo-location will prove a crucial connectivity tool, my bet is that the phenomenon fad has distinct demographic limitations, being much more interesting to single, young people with enough scratch to buy an iPhone 4 than it is to everyone else.

This does not mean that checking-in is the social equivalent of the pick-up bar. But geo-location -- as it's constructed right now -- is for people whose lives center around themselves. (Fighting for mayorship of an alley in Brooklyn? -- you cannot be serious!) I can imagine how rewarding geo-location might be if I were still young, single and living in New York. Knowing where my friends had convened and showing up there might have been a great enhancement to what was already a great bunch of years.

But then, many of us move on to marriage and kids. The parents who are part of this demo are no longer the center of their universe; the job is to ensure everyone around them still gets to be the center of theirs. (Yes, I'm speaking about you, dear children). Unless you work in social media, taking the time to check in is almost embarrassing. Shouldn't you be telling your kids not to stand on the table at the restaurant you're checking in at instead of seeing whether you've just been named its mayor?

In the context of Facebook, this matters. As study after study has proven, it is no longer the province of a select group of demographics but a place where everyone convenes: from teenagers to grandparents, all around the world. Thus, Facebook will be the true litmus test of the geo-location movement, and what we will probably find is that geo-location is just one example of behavioral divides that will continue to emerge as social networks are able to do more for their increasingly diverse group of users.

There will be other litmus tests, and all of them will have implications for the direction that social networks, and marketers, go in. The strange thing I've realized about myself and geo-location is that while I've little interest in telegraphing my whereabouts to casual observers, I'm keenly interested in retailers offering me rewards for checking in. It taps into another part of the parental psyche -- the section that finds gratification in getting a good deal because it helps to expand the family budget.

For the marketers and social nets willing to exploit behavioral nuances, there's much opportunity here. With Facebook now wholeheartedly in the geo-location game we'll get a much better idea of what they are -- and aren't.

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