So Facebook Places has been launched in the UK for over 3 months now, to much fanfare and scaremongering in the Media about privacy concerns and whether your local stalker could now trace your every move.

In my opinion and from my Facebook daily feed, very few of my 298 friends are using it, with the odd checking at the 'Cinema' and perhaps the most used ' into Bed'. Somehow the snappy video from Facebook on launch date that suggested we would start checking in everywhere and looking to see where our friends where to join them, hasnt caught on among my circle of friends yet anyway and definitely not for the right locations!

I find the whole process of checking in on the iPhone in particular very cumbersome and buggy at the minute - taking an age to search for nearby places and if i have to create a new 1 the Pin ends up somewhere totally random anyway, therefore i usually dont bother - as it takes too long & theres nothing 'fun' about it.

I think this is where Facebook is failing at the minute. Competitors such as Foursquare & Gowalla make the experience of checking in fun, colourful and useful. Their use of badges for different types of places alone draws me in, in fact i spent an hour a few days ago going though all the latest Disney World Badges and planning which i would collect first by checking in when i finally get to Orlando with my little girl!



Until Facebook make 'Facebook Places' an enjoyable, fun & quick thing to do - i wont be checking in anywhere and neither will my friends it seems.

What do you think? Have Facebook got the location based element all wrong?