Since beginning to toy with Facebook Places this weekend, I initially found myself getting a bit lazier about using Foursquare. Instead, I checked in using Facebook and was excited (yes, I’m a dork!) to receive comments on my profile in reaction to the check-ins.

But as I visited more places throughout the weekend, I wondered if most people on Facebook who haven’t used Foursquare would grow annoyed with me for checking in too often.

My latest thoughts are that I’ll use Facebook Places for “status” check-ins — cool places I want everyone to know about — and I’ll continue to use Facebook for less sexy check-ins and, of course, to maintain my mayorships (like at Arment Dietrich, of course!).

I’m interested to see how this thinking continues to evolve for myself, my friends and others around me.

I started playing with Facebook Places on Thursday and have found a fun little game to check in only to places where I eat (which is a lot) and tag my tapeworm (who has a FB account). It’s very silly, but it creates really funny comments on my wall.

I don’t know, yet, if there is a place for both Foursquare and Facebook Places. I’m kind of thinking not.

The problem has been the lack of understanding. Foursquare checkins are only viewable by your friends… unless, of course, you check the twitter box in your iPhone app and then it’s broadcast widely – and can be seen by those not following you via searches.

I’ve little doubt that we’ll see a bunch of “scare stories” in the news in the coming months. But the key will be in making it easy to understand the settings. I would recommend everyone turn off the “allow friends to check me in” setting until we see how that is really used. It’s way too easy to abuse – probably just for hijinx but potentially other issues.

The coming months will be fascinating – with so many more users suddenly able to share locations, we’ll undoubtedly see new applications and abuses that none of us can anticipate today.

I’m with Tom on this…I see HUGE opportunity for business, but as a person (especially a woman who travels alone) it’s kind of scary to leave it up to my friends to tag me when I see them…especially if it’s not in Chicago. It’s the whole idea of pleaserobme.com (which has been shut down). Why do we want the world to know when we’re not home?

I use Foursquare and I love it because of the specials and freebies I get, but it’s not linked to my Twitter and Facebook for the very reasons I mention above.

We’ll see what this does – I’m not going to set my privacy settings against it yet.

The privacy settings are always the issue with Facebook. But the reason they make it opt-out and not opt-in is for the mainstream to catch wind and hopefully give it a whirl.

I truly believe location sharing has turned a corner here and will continue to gain momentum very quickly.

Thanks for the solid post, Barry, and for working late last night to pump it out. It’s great to be able to publish such quality writing on timely topics here at Spin Sucks.

For most people, the platform of choice Will probably depend upon what their network does. If your friends checking with Facebook, so will you. For now, I remain a Foursquare user, as that’s where my network is, but won’t be surprised to see that shift.

From a user’s perspective, I’m not sold yet. As a Foursquare user, I was able to opt-in and choose friends based upon whether or not I wanted to know their location. I simply don’t care about the location of most of my facebook friends; it seems like I’m going to have to opt-out by changing the settings. Beyond all the privacy concerns, I feel like my newsfeed is just going to be littered with information I don’t want to see (unless I opt-out).

Regardless, I’m excited for Facebook Places. It truly makes location-based services mainstream, which I think is very cool.

Tom Miesen
@tmiesen