When I opened my mailbox the other day I caught glimpse of a rather large envelope from Facebook. My first thought was what the hell is Facebook sending me? and my second was open it, open it! Inside was the sticker shown above and it’s believed to be the first part of Facebook’s “Places” implementation and while cool, I wasn’t sure it was going to do me (primarily a wedding photographer) much good to stick it on my office door.

So what is Facebook Places? Well nobody really knows just yet but according to small business newz some code has been uncovered in Facebook mobile and blah blah blah it might be rolled out later this month. Speculation is that it will leverage mobile devices and their location abilities much like Foursquare has but on a much more impressive scale.  I could see it working something like this, you walk up to John Doe’s Business and see his window sticker. You fire up your smartphone and “like” his Facebook page. Facebook (places) mobile, cuz it’s so freaking smart, asks to use your geolocation and boom your visit is recorded, tracked, sold to the highest bidder etc. Potentially scary but also potentially cool. It could be just shy of having an RFID tracking device embedded under your skin, but instead of under your skin it’s just sitting in your pocket.

This could be awesome for photographers with a studio and especially for those that take walk-ins. I know I’d be the first photographer in town to schedule an open house where I’d encourage everyone to Facebook tag their visit. Boom… all the sudden everyone on Facebook thinks I’m the place to be.

Could be interesting to see how this feature pans out. So what would you like Facebook Places to be or do?  (DWF pros can discuss this one on the forums)

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