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交网站巨头Facebook一头扎进地理定位领域。
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Facebook Places在iPhone 上的应用。
Facebook周三针对其5亿用户推出一个名为“Places”（中译“地点”）的可选新服务。用户可以在多个目的地“签到”(check in)，然后告诉Facebook上的“朋友”(friends)，同时可以使用地图和评论，以及Facebook的“喜欢”(like)功能。
我已经在测试这项新服务，觉得它便于使用、可靠，隐私设置基本上也很合理。Facebook过去曾饱受隐私问题的困扰。
在智能手机开始运行社交网站应用程序、并能够指明用户所在地过后不久，各公司即开始建立以地理定位为基础的社交网站。
这些服务让你和社交网站上的“朋友”们知道你们是不是在同一个地区，如果是的话，大家可以聚到一块。另外，商户也可以利用优惠券或广告吸引人们前去消费。你只需要拿着智能手机到某个地方“签到”就可以了。
这些以地理定位为基础的社交网站成长迅速，特别是其中的Foursquare。在经济衰退期间，很多用户为省钱尤其喜欢打折优惠。商户也可以从中赚钱。
但这些社交网站引起了争议。虽然多数都有隐私设置，但它们被指允许其他人随时知道你身在何处，从而有损用户的隐私。它们把这类信息提供给商户，同样也引起了争论。
对于Facebook的应用程序，起先只能通过苹果iPhone“签到”，不过你也可以用其他能够跟踪自己位置并支持HTML 5技术的手机或笔记本电脑，在浏览器中登陆touch.facebook.com来使用“地点”功能。
在过去一个星期左右的时间里，我和同事伯瑞特(Katherine Boehret)拿着iPhone手机，在我们位于华盛顿特区的大本营附近，利用Facebook的地点功能在商店、酒吧、饭馆，甚至我们的办公室“签到”。我还可以替跟我在一起的其他Facebook用户“签到”，也就是“标注”(tag)，比如过来看我的儿子和儿媳。所有这些测试都很顺利，但有一件事情很奇怪：我可以让自己在附近的地点签到，哪怕我人没有在那里。
在每一个地点，你都可以利用“地点”服务看到附近的朋友和其他Facebook用户（即便他们不是你的朋友）。这个功能被叫做“People Here Now”（同时同地的人们）。
未成年人只能看到自己的朋友。我们无法测试这种“同时同地”功能，因为在预发布阶段，附近使用“地点”服务的人还没有那么多。
这些“签到”地点发布在了我们的Facebook页面上，人们可以发表评论。（但这次测试中的“签到”结果，只有少数其他能在预发布阶段使用这项服务的人可以看到。）
当然，Facebook推出“地点”功能的原因之一是，与Foursquare和Gowalla等定位服务竞争。这些服务已经可以与Facebook结合起来，利用后者庞大的用户基础，这对规模更大的社交网站Facebook来说是个潜在的威胁。
Facebook说，增加“地点”功能只是为了丰富已在提供的社交体验。该公司说，其用户已在发布状态信息，比如“和苏珊、杰夫在哈佛广场的星巴克”。如今，他们只要轻点iPhone手机上Facebook应用程序中一个新的“地点”图标就行了，而且还有地图。一名Facebook管理人士说，我们只是在构建一种让人们能够以一种参与的方式分享这类信息的方法。
Facebook说，没有对这项服务收费，至少开始时没有，不过以后可能会考虑让企业使用全部数据的方法。
用户不会收到广告或产品，至少开始时不会。不过，如果一个商人已经有了一个Facebook页面，有些将可以从一开始就显示你签到的情况，不过只有你的朋友能够看到。Facebook说，不计划在“地点”功能中增加类似游戏的功能，不过第三方开发商可能会。
我仔细研究了它的隐私保护功能，以便判断在哪些人可以看到用户位置的问题上，Facebook给了用户多大的控制权。我的结论是，控制得还不错，不过还有进一步改进的空间。你可以在Facebook隐私设置窗口的“分享”(Sharing)一项中控制你的“地点”信息的公开程度。“地点”的默认模式是“只有朋友可见”(Friends Only)，除非你表示愿意与所有的人分享。我认为这个功能很好。
Facebook还允许你禁止其他人查看你的签到情况，让你可以从其他人的“同时同地”列表中隐身，不过你不能对这后一种设置进行个性化设置，比如仅仅让一些人知道你就在附近。
在我的测试中，这些设置表现得不错。不过，我希望能有其他一些设置。比如，你无法把签到通知从你的Facebook页面上去除，除非你整个阻止其他类型的状态更新。你也无法阻止商人把你的签到信息包括在他们Facebook页面上的设置中。此外，尽管“地点”功能避免了竞争对手所提供的一些烦人功能，比如游戏功能，却精简得更多，漏掉了其他对手包含的一些吸引人的功能。Foursquare有一个功能，让你可以就一个地点提建议。Gowalla有“旅行”(trips)功能，使用户可以把自己曾经到过的地方连在一起作为建议的旅游路线。
总体来讲，我发现“地点”是对Facebook的一种增强，很可能会使日益火爆起来的社交网站对一些人更具吸引力。
Walter S. Mossberg
（编者按：本文作者Walter S. Mossberg是《华尔街日报》科技栏目Personal Technology，Mossberg's Mailbox等栏目的专栏作家。这些栏目主要介绍一些最新的消费类科技产品和解决方案，并解答读者提出的问题。）
（更新完成）
我已经在测试这项新服务，觉得它便于使用、可靠，隐私设置基本上也很合理。Facebook过去曾饱受隐私问题的困扰。
在智能手机开始运行社交网站应用程序、并能够指明用户所在地过后不久，各公司即开始建立以地理定位为基础的社交网站。
这些服务让你和社交网站上的“朋友”们知道你们是不是在同一个地区，如果是的话，大家可以聚到一块。另外，商户也可以利用优惠券或广告吸引人们前去消费。你只需要拿着智能手机到某个地方“签到”就可以了。
这些以地理定位为基础的社交网站成长迅速，特别是其中的Foursquare。在经济衰退期间，很多用户为省钱尤其喜欢打折优惠。商户也可以从中赚钱。
但这些社交网站引起了争议。虽然多数都有隐私设置，但它们被指允许其他人随时知道你身在何处，从而有损用户的隐私。它们把这类信息提供给商户，同样也引起了争论。
对于Facebook的应用程序，起先只能通过苹果iPhone“签到”，不过你也可以用其他能够跟踪自己位置并支持HTML 5技术的手机或笔记本电脑，在浏览器中登陆touch.facebook.com来使用“地点”功能。
在过去一个星期左右的时间里，我和同事伯瑞特(Katherine Boehret)拿着iPhone手机，在我们位于华盛顿特区的大本营附近，利用Facebook的地点功能在商店、酒吧、饭馆，甚至我们的办公室“签到”。我还可以替跟我在一起的其他Facebook用户“签到”，也就是“标注”(tag)，比如过来看我的儿子和儿媳。所有这些测试都很顺利，但有一件事情很奇怪：我可以让自己在附近的地点签到，哪怕我人没有在那里。
在每一个地点，你都可以利用“地点”服务看到附近的朋友和其他Facebook用户（即便他们不是你的朋友）。这个功能被叫做“People Here Now”（同时同地的人们）。
未成年人只能看到自己的朋友。我们无法测试这种“同时同地”功能，因为在预发布阶段，附近使用“地点”服务的人还没有那么多。
这些“签到”地点发布在了我们的Facebook页面上，人们可以发表评论。（但这次测试中的“签到”结果，只有少数其他能在预发布阶段使用这项服务的人可以看到。）
当然，Facebook推出“地点”功能的原因之一是，与Foursquare和Gowalla等定位服务竞争。这些服务已经可以与Facebook结合起来，利用后者庞大的用户基础，这对规模更大的社交网站Facebook来说是个潜在的威胁。
Facebook说，增加“地点”功能只是为了丰富已在提供的社交体验。该公司说，其用户已在发布状态信息，比如“和苏珊、杰夫在哈佛广场的星巴克”。如今，他们只要轻点iPhone手机上Facebook应用程序中一个新的“地点”图标就行了，而且还有地图。一名Facebook管理人士说，我们只是在构建一种让人们能够以一种参与的方式分享这类信息的方法。
Facebook说，没有对这项服务收费，至少开始时没有，不过以后可能会考虑让企业使用全部数据的方法。
用户不会收到广告或产品，至少开始时不会。不过，如果一个商人已经有了一个Facebook页面，有些将可以从一开始就显示你签到的情况，不过只有你的朋友能够看到。Facebook说，不计划在“地点”功能中增加类似游戏的功能，不过第三方开发商可能会。
我仔细研究了它的隐私保护功能，以便判断在哪些人可以看到用户位置的问题上，Facebook给了用户多大的控制权。我的结论是，控制得还不错，不过还有进一步改进的空间。你可以在Facebook隐私设置窗口的“分享”(Sharing)一项中控制你的“地点”信息的公开程度。“地点”的默认模式是“只有朋友可见”(Friends Only)，除非你表示愿意与所有的人分享。我认为这个功能很好。
Facebook还允许你禁止其他人查看你的签到情况，让你可以从其他人的“同时同地”列表中隐身，不过你不能对这后一种设置进行个性化设置，比如仅仅让一些人知道你就在附近。
在我的测试中，这些设置表现得不错。不过，我希望能有其他一些设置。比如，你无法把签到通知从你的Facebook页面上去除，除非你整个阻止其他类型的状态更新。你也无法阻止商人把你的签到信息包括在他们Facebook页面上的设置中。此外，尽管“地点”功能避免了竞争对手所提供的一些烦人功能，比如游戏功能，却精简得更多，漏掉了其他对手包含的一些吸引人的功能。Foursquare有一个功能，让你可以就一个地点提建议。Gowalla有“旅行”(trips)功能，使用户可以把自己曾经到过的地方连在一起作为建议的旅游路线。
总体来讲，我发现“地点”是对Facebook的一种增强，很可能会使日益火爆起来的社交网站对一些人更具吸引力。
Walter S. Mossberg
（编者按：本文作者Walter S. Mossberg是《华尔街日报》科技栏目Personal Technology，Mossberg's Mailbox等栏目的专栏作家。这些栏目主要介绍一些最新的消费类科技产品和解决方案，并解答读者提出的问题。）
（更新完成）
The 800-pound gorilla of social networks, Facebook, is jumping into the location game.
On Wednesday, it announced a new, optional service for its 500 million members called Places, which allows you to check in to various places you go, and share that information with your Facebook friends, complete with maps and comments and the Facebook thumbs-up 'like' feature.
I've been testing the new service, and found it easy to use and reliable, with mostly logical privacy controls, an issue on which Facebook has been bruised in the past.
Companies began to build location-based social networks shortly after smartphones began to include social-networking apps and the ability to pinpoint your location.
These services let you and your network 'friends' know if you were in the same area, so you could get together. They also let merchants entice you with coupons or ads. All you had to do was use your smartphone to 'check in' an establishment.
These location-based networks, notably Foursquare, have grown fast. Especially in a recession, many users appreciate offers to save money. There also is money to be made by the merchants.
But these networks are controversial. Though most have privacy controls, they are accused of eroding privacy by allowing others to know exactly where you are at any time. They also raise issues about giving such information to merchants.
On the Facebook app, you initially can check in to Places only if you have Apple's iPhone, though you can use a site at touch.facebook.com via your browser on other phones and laptops that can track your location and support HTML 5 technology.
In the past week or so, my colleague Katherine Boehret and I have used Facebook Places to check in with iPhones around our home base of Washington, D.C., at stores, bars, restaurants and even our office. I also was able to check in, or 'tag,' other Facebook members with me, like my visiting son and daughter-in-law. All of these tests went well, but I was surprised by one odd thing: I could check myself into nearby places even if I wasn't there.
At each location, Places lets you see your friends and other Facebook members (even if they're not your friends), who are nearby, a feature called 'People Here Now.'
Minors are excluded from seeing anyone except their friends. We couldn't test this 'Here Now' feature because, in the pre-release stage, there weren't enough people with the new service to be nearby.
These check-ins were posted on our Facebook pages (though, for this test, they could only be seen by the handful of others with pre-release access to the service), and people could comment.
One reason Facebook has launched Places, surely, is to compete with location-based services like Foursquare and Gowalla. Those services already can link up with Facebook and tap its huge member base, a potential threat to the larger social network.
Facebook says it is adding Places merely to enrich the social experience it already provides. The company says its users already post status messages that say things like: 'at Starbucks in Harvard Square with Susan and Jeff.' Now, they can tap a new Places icon in the Facebook app on their iPhones and do this more easily, complete with a map. 'We're just building a new way for people to share that information in an engaging way,' says one Facebook official.
Facebook says it isn't monetizing the service, at least not at first, but may consider ways for companies to make use of the data 'down the line.'
Users won't receive ads or offers, at least initially. But if a merchant already has a Facebook page, some will be able to display your check-ins from the start, though visible only to your friends. Facebook says it has no plans to add game-like features to Places, though third-party developers might.
I paid close attention to its privacy features, to judge how much control Facebook is offering users over who gets to see where they are. My conclusion is that the controls are decent, but could be a bit better. You can control how public your Places information is on Facebook's privacy settings screen, in the Sharing section. The default for Places is 'Friends Only,' unless you expressed a preference to share things with everyone. That's a good thing, in my view.
Facebook also allows you to bar others from checking you in, and lets you hide yourself from others' 'Here Now' listings, though you can't customize this latter setting by, say, allowing only some people to know you're nearby.
In my tests, these settings worked fine. But I wished a couple of other settings were available. For example, you can't keep check-in notices off your Facebook page, unless you broadly block other kinds of status updates. And you can't block merchants from including your check-ins at their establishments on their Facebook pages. Also, while Places omits some annoying aspects of its competitors, like the game features, it's more stripped down and leaves out some attractive features others include. Foursquare has a feature that lets you leave suggestions about a location. And Gowalla has a 'trips' feature that lets users string together places they've been into recommended tours.
Overall, I found Places a good enhancement to Facebook and one that will likely make the booming social network even more attractive to some.
Walter S. Mossberg
On Wednesday, it announced a new, optional service for its 500 million members called Places, which allows you to check in to various places you go, and share that information with your Facebook friends, complete with maps and comments and the Facebook thumbs-up 'like' feature.
I've been testing the new service, and found it easy to use and reliable, with mostly logical privacy controls, an issue on which Facebook has been bruised in the past.
Companies began to build location-based social networks shortly after smartphones began to include social-networking apps and the ability to pinpoint your location.
These services let you and your network 'friends' know if you were in the same area, so you could get together. They also let merchants entice you with coupons or ads. All you had to do was use your smartphone to 'check in' an establishment.
These location-based networks, notably Foursquare, have grown fast. Especially in a recession, many users appreciate offers to save money. There also is money to be made by the merchants.
But these networks are controversial. Though most have privacy controls, they are accused of eroding privacy by allowing others to know exactly where you are at any time. They also raise issues about giving such information to merchants.
On the Facebook app, you initially can check in to Places only if you have Apple's iPhone, though you can use a site at touch.facebook.com via your browser on other phones and laptops that can track your location and support HTML 5 technology.
In the past week or so, my colleague Katherine Boehret and I have used Facebook Places to check in with iPhones around our home base of Washington, D.C., at stores, bars, restaurants and even our office. I also was able to check in, or 'tag,' other Facebook members with me, like my visiting son and daughter-in-law. All of these tests went well, but I was surprised by one odd thing: I could check myself into nearby places even if I wasn't there.
At each location, Places lets you see your friends and other Facebook members (even if they're not your friends), who are nearby, a feature called 'People Here Now.'
Minors are excluded from seeing anyone except their friends. We couldn't test this 'Here Now' feature because, in the pre-release stage, there weren't enough people with the new service to be nearby.
These check-ins were posted on our Facebook pages (though, for this test, they could only be seen by the handful of others with pre-release access to the service), and people could comment.
One reason Facebook has launched Places, surely, is to compete with location-based services like Foursquare and Gowalla. Those services already can link up with Facebook and tap its huge member base, a potential threat to the larger social network.
Facebook says it is adding Places merely to enrich the social experience it already provides. The company says its users already post status messages that say things like: 'at Starbucks in Harvard Square with Susan and Jeff.' Now, they can tap a new Places icon in the Facebook app on their iPhones and do this more easily, complete with a map. 'We're just building a new way for people to share that information in an engaging way,' says one Facebook official.
Facebook says it isn't monetizing the service, at least not at first, but may consider ways for companies to make use of the data 'down the line.'
Users won't receive ads or offers, at least initially. But if a merchant already has a Facebook page, some will be able to display your check-ins from the start, though visible only to your friends. Facebook says it has no plans to add game-like features to Places, though third-party developers might.
I paid close attention to its privacy features, to judge how much control Facebook is offering users over who gets to see where they are. My conclusion is that the controls are decent, but could be a bit better. You can control how public your Places information is on Facebook's privacy settings screen, in the Sharing section. The default for Places is 'Friends Only,' unless you expressed a preference to share things with everyone. That's a good thing, in my view.
Facebook also allows you to bar others from checking you in, and lets you hide yourself from others' 'Here Now' listings, though you can't customize this latter setting by, say, allowing only some people to know you're nearby.
In my tests, these settings worked fine. But I wished a couple of other settings were available. For example, you can't keep check-in notices off your Facebook page, unless you broadly block other kinds of status updates. And you can't block merchants from including your check-ins at their establishments on their Facebook pages. Also, while Places omits some annoying aspects of its competitors, like the game features, it's more stripped down and leaves out some attractive features others include. Foursquare has a feature that lets you leave suggestions about a location. And Gowalla has a 'trips' feature that lets users string together places they've been into recommended tours.
Overall, I found Places a good enhancement to Facebook and one that will likely make the booming social network even more attractive to some.
Walter S. Mossberg
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