River Run Tech Blog: Facebook Places - How to use it
Posted by Eric Torres on Tue, Aug 31, 2010 @ 01:20 PM
Facebook's newest feature allows you to share your location with your friends.
Facebook has launched its new Places feature allowing you to share your current location by "checking in" from your smartphone. It’s basically Facebook’s version of Foursquare, a company that Facebook considered buying earlier in the year. If you never really got into earlier location-based social networking services or just want to know what it is or how to turn it off, read on for everything you need to know about Facebook Places.
Checking In Via Smartphone
Before you can share your location with your Facebook friends, Facebook needs to know where you are. Just open touch.facebook.com in your web browser (or use the Facebook for iPhone app on your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad), and you'll see a tab under "Inbox" called "Places." For the iOS app, it'll show a new icon in the middle of the home screen.
Tap Places, and you'll see your recent check-ins as well as where your friends and checked-in from. From here, you can find more 
detailed information about the places your friends are checking into (map location, description, directions, comments, and other check-ins), or you can check yourself into a nearby location by pressing the Check In button at the top-right corner of the page.
The list of available locations comes from other people's check-ins and listings from Bing's mapping engine, so you might have to add your location manually by pressing “Add”, and it will take you to a page where you can fill out a name and description.
Once you tap Check In, you'll be presented with a list of nearby locations where other people have checked in. Tap the one you want to check into, and you can choose to comment on what you are doing there or add your Facebook friends to your check-in (Press the What are you doing? and Tag Friends With You buttons, respectively). Next, press the big Check In button, and it will show up on your News Feed.
Businesses Owning Their Facebook Place
While anyone can add a Facebook Place, business owners can turn the listing in Places into a proper Facebook Page, with Likes and a Wall. Start by checking in from your Place (or adding it, if it doesn't show up in the list of nearby Places), and click the link on the bottom of the page that says Is this your business?
Facebook doesn't want people cybersquatting on someone else's business listing, so you'll have to check a box certifying you're an official representative of the business and click Proceed with Verification to continue. Next, you'll have to provide your business's contact information, including your Federal Employee ID number (if applicable) and some kind of official documentation (Certificate of Formation, Articles of Certificate of Incorporation, a local business license, or a BBB accreditation).
Once you've submitted that information and received the okay from Facebook's User Operations team, you'll be in full control of your new Place.
Turning Off Facebook Places
If you decided Facebook Places isn't for you, there are a handful of settings you will have to change to fully deactivate it. Start by going to Account > Privacy Settings > Customize Settings under Sharing on Facebook. From here, you'll need to change the settings for Places I Check In, People Here Now, and Friends Can Check Me into Places (under the Things Others Share heading).
You'll need to change one more setting: Go back to Privacy Settings, choose the Edit Your Settings option under the Applications and Websites heading (lower-left), and click Edit Settings for Info accessible to your friends. Uncheck the Places I've Visited box, and you are good to go.
For a more detailed explanation the options available for Facebook Places check out the Facebook Blog, "Facebook Blog: Who, What, When, and now…Where”