The sun will come up.

Charles Barkley will say something unintentionally hilarious.

Facebook will emulate what it doesn’t buy.

On the latter point, Wednesday evening Facebook debuted Places. The premise and execution of Facebook Places is remarkably similar to the first two sentences anyone may use to describe any number of check-in applications: It’s a way to share your actual location with others online; it also allows you to observe where others have checked in. Where many other applications seek to go from that starter definition, be it MyTown with games, Foursquare with tips, Gowalla with stickers, or ShopKick with deals, Facebook has simply stopped limply (but maybe effectively) at the first point of entry.

There’s a few other tricks to Facebook Places, and the following video, dripping with a sincerity that suggests they have suddenly figured out something others haven’t, demonstrates them:

Also inevitable is that Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal will be given a test run before most other humans. Unlike his usually predictably estatic review of Apple products (generally done in time for Steve Jobs to use an actual Mossberg quote as a part of his Keynote presentations), Walt was actually a bit matter-of-fact about Facebook Places. Not cold or harsh, just… well, “Meh” would probably be the most effusive meta-adjective I’d use.

This is because what may become the most short-term-advantageous thing about Places is what it does for others, including those other check-in services. The APIs that could come streaming out could hook into and help fuel the growth of any number of companies Facebook as threatened or tried to buy recently, several of whom (Gowalla, Foursquare and Yelp) actually appeared in some form on stage with Facebook for Places’ debut. And yes, businesses can claim their “Place” via a Page as we and others mused months ago.

And what about long-term? Well you can better believe Facebook didn’t debut this to merely dip a toe in. Cross-platform geo-location ads, sacks of data on visitations and total domination of the “place” space is clearly a mid-term goal. Actual quote from Zuckerberg: “…certainly you can imagine these things in the future.”

We have been recently musing on the concept of “place” (including, “How Location Could Change The Future of Pages” last March) insofar as the web toys with tying itself to real-world geographies and the inherent opportunity and fear laden in those watching this wrestling match happen. But one thing we’ve always said about Facebook — their nearest, truest competitor in a spiritual sense was never MySpace, but Windows. They want to be the start, constant and end of the web for many people — the entry point in. And for many, they are. So now marry location ontop of that and you can begin to see how powerful they could become for the general public. For and to the general public, I should say. Being in Facebook, as a valid location that people actually visit in real life as well as “Like” could become the equivalent of having your name and address in the phone book in the 80′s and being a store that’s in the Mall. You want to be “seen” there- and now you can, by friends who aren’t even nearby to see you.

This, of course, begs the privacy question. But if we rest for a moment and assume that this is about who you allow to see your location, we can hopefully still talk about “place” and Facebook’s role in it in a rational fashion. I could choose to not tell a single friend where I was on Facebook and still find it incredibly valuable to know that a restaurant I hear about in Richmond, VA called “Strange Matter” has been visited by several of my friends, I could reference it in a Status Update and get real recommendations of what to eat there and tips such as bringing your own quarters for the vintage arcade games. 3/4 of that scenario already happened pre-Places, but now I could potentially verify that it’s a cool place that several of my less chatty friends have also patronized recently. It becomes an early indicator for me in a single search, allowing me then to pursue more info through other means (Yelp reviews, call-outs for other recommendations on Twitter, etc.).

Facebook Places doesn’t change the game as much as it does solidify it, make it whole and, likely, make it ubiquitous. What it does more than really innovate is fire a cannon in a battle previously fought by slingshots as it brings its half-a-billion active audience into the check-in game. But don’t be distracted by the battle to see whose or what type of check-in system wins. Instead, start to look ahead, with us, at what this will mean for the intersection of real and web location in the years ahead.

-Dean (@dbrowell)

UPDATED August 19, 2010: Not that Facebook Places is available in #RVA just yet. #Fail #FacebookPlaces, #Fail.

One last note: Notice that Places logo? As TechCrunch points out: “It’s a 4. In a Square. Yeah.“

10 Things You Need To Know About the New Facebook Privacy Changes: http://bit.ly/cVvLoP
Can you imagine a company that makes physical products being able to backpedal this fast and publicly? No? Me neither. Check out the ever-helpful AllFacebook.com for tips on those new privacy controls.

The Half-Life Of A YouTube Video Is 6 Days: http://bit.ly/dkJUYO
Or: why you need to get that video up FAST.

Why Facebook Community Pages Are No Big Deal For Brands…Eventually:  http://bit.ly/cUEQNe
One of the single most perplexing things for brand managers right now is the sudden appearance of “Community Pages” – a weird cross between Wikipedia and a living Facebook Wall, these have cropped up for some but not all random subjects, brand names, employers and more. This article explains why over time they won’t be so confusing or important, but right now they’re causing consternation…

PA Becomes First State to Join Foursquare: http://bit.ly/c7IjKq
You know you want the, “PA Retail Polka” Badge

Why BP Isn’t Fretting Over Its Twitter Impostor: http://bit.ly/aEOmgv
While the comedic value is sometimes hit and miss, the fact it has been left alone is telling enough. Read why BP isn’t pulling the plug on a sarcastic rival PR horn.

We had an incredible time at the New England Society of Healthcare Communications this week in beautiful Stowe, VT. Feedback presented the keynote, moderated a panel on social media and New England hospitals, and gave a talk/discussion on generational differences. The NESHCo group is a great group of folks!

For those just joining us from that conference or others:

The gnome is watching you...

Feedback on Facebook (Facebook.com/FeedbackFB)
Where you’ll find  our active links, commentary, great discussions, photos, video and more on a daily (heck, hourly) basis… just click “Like” and you’re in!

Feedback on Twitter (@feedbackagency)
Twitterers can get their fix on our stream here, linking to great articles, thoughts and more!

And of course here on our blog and on YouTube (user: FeedbackVideos) you can catch Anna’s Social Media Picks of the Week.

Have a safe holiday weekend everyone!

-Dean (@dbrowell)

Huge ideas abound and it was an incredibly helpful (and dare we say important) conference to witness. It was only the second time in two years they’d even held this exploration of internet culture, memes, academia and society at MIT. Anna (first-timer) and I (returning for round two) soaked up every minute of the packed two days. There’s so much to share, but we wanted to be sure to get some key themes in writing first:

• The entire conference started out with Ethan Zuckerman’s (The Berkman Center for Internet and Society) brilliant “From Weird to Wide” primer on important philosophical questions about culture, the internet and memes. This included not only a bright debut of Kenyan’s first meme explosion, but also an important discussion of a significant point: Be an anthropologist, not a bouncer. In other words, embrace rather than exclude. It would set the tone for some interesting underpinnings for the rest of the conference
• Apparently the rest of The Internet agrees that YouTube comments are the most ridiculous in the universe
• Another giant point writ large: Know your history. There were many great moments in a variety of panels that included memes and networks old and new, but the overall one can’t be hyped enough: know where we’ve been. For example, the open community of Usenet, with its challenges, imperfections, sub-communities, stalwart user trust and very existence pre-AOL set the stage for one of the toughest but singularly important lessons of the entire conference…
• “AOL” and “Training Wheels.” The Tweets heard round the world. As the very last panel at ROFLcon II tried to wrap its arms around the topic of “Mainstreaming the Web,” Ben Huh and Moot (from LOLcats and 4chan fame, respectively) deftly created a distinct separation between the open sub-communities that operate online (some anonymously) and those that allow for a mainstream audience to operate in a larger but closed system. With over 950 attendees, ROFLcon included employees from ominous internet giants such as Google and Mozilla, but as this panel pointed out, not a soul from Facebook (or none that would admit it). This lead to the single most Re-Tweeted line from the conference, uttered by Ben:

“Facebook has become like AOL, it’s like training wheels for the internet. It’s a safe place, except for your privacy.”

And thus what was once considered a fringe medium was correctly pegged as having moved into a mainstream culture controlled by a single corporation. We’ve been here before. With 400 million users, with meaningful proportions of diverse generations, races and cultures, Facebook is not unlike the closed system of AOL. This doesn’t make it right or wrong, but it does make it everywhere and closed – and drastically different from much of the sub-cultures brewing away contently in the rest of the web.

For Feedback one overriding point was clear: the social web hardly, barely begins and ends at the doors of Facebook and Twitter. Certainly a critical mass at those two giants means we must implement there to reach a large population of consumer. But even more importantly we must dive deep, see fewer obstacles and research even smarter and harder beyond these barriers into the sub-cultures that exist in the interest, cultural and geographic communities. There are enough self-proclaimed social media gods to take care of staring at Facebook and Twitter only. But it’s not unlike marveling only at a capital city and not noticing the swarms of people outside, down the roads, in other states, in other countries… The future of the net and community is not only also out there, it may indeed only be out there. Think I’m just being overly dramatic? Ask AOL.

More to come on some of our favorite moments by myself and Anna (@alucas9). We certainly had fun too and some photos are up on our Facebook Page right now. In the meantime be sure to check out her interview with Christian Lander of “Stuff White People Like” fame.

-Dean (@dbrowell)

Here’s an explanation of Yelp’s new integration with Facebook:

And here’s a clip of Steve Jobs on Yelp as a part of iPhone app success:

Also be sure to catch the great blog by Search Engine Land on the implications on search, including Yelp, of Facebook’s recent announcements.

-Dean (@dbrowell)

P.S. We’ve been brainstorming the effect on other industries as well.  For example, what’s the Yelp of healthcare, if a review site on docs, procedures, clinics…gets that much traffic, going to do to the industry? Drop in virtually or in-person and brainstorm with us!