Oh, the Facebook Places You'll Go!

(Aug. 19) -- Ch-ch-check it out: On Wednesday night, Facebook unveiled a new geo-location feature, Facebook Places, that allows users to post status updates with their exact location by "checking in" to a social spot (park, coffee shop, movie theater, restaurant, nightclub) via a mobile application (iPhone only for now).

Almost immediately, tech writers began pointing out the similarities between this new service and Foursquare -- a separate geo-location application that awards points for repeated check-ins, turning real-life travel into an endless social-media game -- as well as Google Places, which, despite sharing the same generic product name, is actually quite different, catering to businesses rather than consumers.

But the most astute comparisons, as Surge Desk sees it, have been to Dr. Seuss' beloved children's book, "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" The final title released before the good doctor's death (and no, he wasn't actually a doctor, the book was a humorous nod to his never-completed Oxford degree) actually predicts with startling accuracy both the creation of Facebook Places and the reaction to it thus far (a mixture of curiosity, wonderment and fears about even less privacy). Have a gander at some selected passages from and about the two "Places," Facebook and Seuss:

Seuss

You'll find the bright places where Boom Bands are playing. With banner flip-flapping, once more you'll ride high! Ready for anything under the sky. Ready because you're that kind of a guy!

Oh, the places you'll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. And the magical things you can do with that ball will make you the winning-est winner of all. Fame! You'll be famous as famous can be, with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.

Facebook

If you're like me, when you find a place you really like, you want to tell your friends you're there. Maybe it's a new restaurant, a beautiful hiking trail or an amazing live show.

Starting today, you can immediately tell people about that favorite spot with Facebook Places. You can share where you are and the friends you're with in real time from your mobile device.
-- Michael Eyal Sharon, Facebook Mobile Developer

Seuss

Do you dare to go in? How much can you lose? How much can you win?

And if you go in, should you turn left or right ... or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite? Or go around back and sneak in from behind? Simple it's not, I'm afraid you will find, for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.

You can get so confused that you'll start in to race down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space, headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.

Facebook

"What we see with Facebook is a massive learning curve. Every time they make a change, consumers scramble to figure out the privacy settings," said Rainey Reitman, spokeswoman for Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in the U.S. (via The Guardian).

Places update in iPhone Facebook app; you are confusing me :-(less than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhonezak morton
zmorton

Now the Facebook app has this Places feature, am I going to have to remember to log in there as well? Too confusing!less than a minute ago via EchofonStuart Bryant
amigastu

The Waiting Place ... for people just waiting.

Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a Better Break or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance. Everyone is just waiting.

Facebook

No offense to certain distant relatives or distant in-laws, but we don't really care or need to know if you're at the grocery store in California. And frankly, sometimes we don't want you to know where we are.
-- Jay Yarow, The Business Insider

First and foremost, my life is suddenly going to seem very, very boring. As Places rolls out to Facebook users over the next few days, all of my hip and happening Facebook friends are going to see that "Adam is home with his boyfriend and dog," "Adam is at the local Greek place for lunch," and "Adam is at home, watching HGTV." I actually don't think that's how Places will exactly work, but you get the idea: Us homebodies who spend inordinate amounts of time at home or at work updating our Facebook statuses are going to be called out as the joyless shut-ins we clearly are.
-- Adam B. Vary, Entertainment Weekly PopWatch

Seuss

And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.)

Facebook

"When a feature like location turns up at Facebook, that's the very definition of going mainstream. Soon, tens of millions and eventually hundreds of millions of mobile device users will be able to check in everywhere they go, and it won't take game mechanics to entice them to do so -- just the desire to keep in touch with their friends."
--Wade Roush, X Economy

"Soon enough, thanks to Facebook and its half a billion users, location will be just another feature so ubiquitous that it's not even worth talking about."
--Mike Elgan, Datamation.