So another working week will see its end today, and that means it’s time for our Friday Routine. As in the previous posts, we aim to display news that draw our attention, and comment them with our readers and followers.

Facebook will launch its location feature

The social media giant has announced at the end of last week that it’s launching a feature that will allow Facebook mobile users to check-in to different places. The news initially posted by AdAge, was later confirmed by Facebook. AdAge also announced that McDonalds will be the first companyto test Facebook’s location feature in an application that allows users to check-in into their restaurants. What will this mean for the other players in the geo localization industry was discussed by us in an article here.

Diaspora – New Facebook

The level of attention the newly founded Facebook “wannabe” has benefited from has been impressive. The peak was reached after they managed to gather $100.000 in funding in just a few days. The project started and developed by 4 NYU students is just one of the many that were launched in recent months. We’re actually curious to see how all of these blooming projects are going to evolve, and if they will become a threat for the market leader, Facebook. The social media market is one that hasn’t reached maturity yet, so once people will become savvier and expectations rise regarding social media, we think it’s possible that users will opt to switch from mass market tools to more refined ones and private groups.

Formspring.me

Another topic we discussed in the office this week is the future of a social network named Formspring.me, and if it could be applied to businesses across the globe. For those of you who don’t know what Formspring.me is, or haven’t heard of it, here is a quick and short description.

Of course, a question could be raised about why use another service when you can do the exact same thing on Twitter or Facebook? These two also have the advantage that you are asking an audience that you are familiar with. The difference on Formspring.me is that you can ask and receive questions anonymously.

Taking advantage of the anonymous cover, teenagers in the US have transformed the social network in some sort of “Gossip Girl” type of website, and started posting nasty comments and embarrassing questions on each other walls. By doing a quick search on Twitter or on Facebook for the term(formspring), the quality of the questions asked and the age of the users can be easily observed.

While we were commenting on the theme, we wondered whether companies could use this platform as a way of communicating with their audiences. We assumed this for companies that work with target audiences such as the users of the social network.  Would it be a good idea for a company to expose itself to the questions of an anonymous user?

We have our opinions about the discussed themes, but we want to hear others too, so what do you think?