by Thu Nguyen

Created on: September 27, 2010

Not too long ago, Facebook Places was released to the public. This feature made use of geolocation or location-based technology, which is pretty much the GPS of your whereabouts. Only it does more. By allowing Facebook to know where you are, you can share your physical position with friends, tag them, check in to places that already exists and even earn rewards for traveling. This article, in particular, will walk you through how you can earn travel rewards for checking in to Facebook Places.

Requirements

In order to use Facebook Places, a user must have a smartphone. Iphone, in particular, is a popular choice. Blackberry and Android versions have not yet been released. In those cases, make sure you are using a Facebook touch mobile site that supports HTML 5 and geolocation. Input in the URL Topguest must be integrated into Facebook Places Read API. They are an all-in-one check in service that will give you loyalty points and travel rewards for checking in at airports, hotels and other hospitality venues. When you let them access your profile, you’re letting the program know where you’ve been so that they can automatically reward you each time.

To start, register at Topguest. You’ll notice that they’ll give you three choices to sign up - through Facebook, Twitter and manually. Choose Facebook as you need to grant permission to let Topguest pull information from your check-ins. Other services Topguest serves as a middle-man for in location-based and social networking services include Foursquare, Gowalla, Twitter and Brightkite.

US Feature, International Tracking

Since the feature is new, the service is currently available only in the US for now. The partnerships are also limited at the moment but they include major hotels like the Viceroy Hotel Group, Intercontinental Hotels Group, Andre Balazs’ Standard Hotel and the Soho & Tribeca Grand. Overall, there are more than 4,600 supported check-in venues worldwide.

Benefits and Downsides

Topguest is not the first to be integrated into Facebook Places. In fact, it is the fourth coming in behind Yelp, Booyah and Gowalla. The only difference is they are rewarding users for checking in. Thus, there’s not only a real world gain but a virtual gain as well when you travel. Users may find themselves a bit squirmy though sharing their whereabouts with a third-party application.

Furthermore, Topguest is currently in beta for the moment. Since they are being tested in the US only, news of international integration is yet to be announced. So there may be minor glitches in the service for new users. Other than that, interested participants would find this added feature worthy of their traveling time, especially if they are a Facebook user.

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