At S2EO we've been approached quite a bit about our Facebook Places postings (here and here), but there are still a few questions we missed the first time around:
1) Who can use Facebook places?
Check-ins are mostly limited to iPhone users. Through the Facebook app, you can either check in when you post a status update (the places icon appears to the right of the status bar) or when you view the menu of nine options - Facebook has put the "Places" icon square in the center. However, you may still be able to check in from certain other mobile devices if they have the latest software (which seems to be HTML5, based on other blogs). If your phone does, you can go to http://www.touch.facebook.com through your browser, and a "Places" tab will appear. S2EO did a bit of unscientific testing around our Shakespeare Squared office and we were able to get it to work on an Android devoice, but not on a BlackBerry. At some point, it should be available on most to all mobile devices.
However, just because you can't check into a place doesn't mean that somebody else can't check you in - one of the big issues we discussed last week. Your happy-hour stop with your coworkers can quickly turn ugly if your iPhone-enabled coworker tags you at the bar when you told your significant other you were working late. As long as you haven't specifically disabled tagging in your privacy settings, you're fair game for tagging whether you yourself use Places or not.
2) So how do I disable Facebook Places tagging?
Once you've logged into Facebook, go to the "Account" drop down menu at the top right and choose "Privacy Settings." Click on the "Custom" option, and the "Customize settings" link at the bottom. Next to "Things I Share," you'll see "Places I check in to" at the bottom of the section. You can customize the setting to "everyone," "Friends and Networks," "Friends of Friends," "Friends Only," or "Customize," which allows you to select "Friends of Friends," "Friends Only," "Specific People," or "Only Me," which would hide it from everyone else (the option to select if you want to "disable" it). You can also hide it from specific people there as well, like your boss or mother-in-law.
Below that, you'll see "Include me in 'People Here Now' after I check in," which means that once you have checked into a place, it will show that you are there on the location's page and when people near you search. To disable, uncheck "Enable."
To disable friends' abilities to check you into somewhere (and save you from the whole happy-hour-working-late fiasco), scroll down to the "Things Others Share" section and find the "Friends can check me in to Places." Set to "Disabled" if you want to disable this option.
You can see more in this video from Lifehacker:
Still have questions about Facebook Places? Let us know in the comments below.
Thank you for writing a blog on this! I am an avid foursquare user and am going to keep my checking-in only on there. I like that my foursquare only has a few people that I can inform and I wouldn't need to inform all of my friends, friends that they we are doing this or are located here. that would be their choice. Also thanks for showing how to opt out.
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