Somehow, I feel like Google is already building this. One day, we will go to Google Maps, type in a friend’s name, and the map will display his or her coordinates. I mean, why not? Google already has the capability in their Latitude product, so it makes sense that they will eventually create a mash-up between Latitude and Maps.

Local Social Strategy

Let’s take this one step further… Latitude + Maps + Search + Social. Imagine Yelp, but limitless, on the scale of Google. You’re at your computer early Saturday morning, in dire need of coffee. You visit Google. Thanks to your IP address, Google knows you’re in NYC. Thanks to your Google Latitude account, Google knows your friends’ locations. You continue to search for “coffee” when you are presented with a map (below) that details coffee locations in NYC that you or your network has either checked in to or reviewed (indicated by a large red star)… and those that are brand new (indicated by a small red circle), as well as the current location of your friends if applicable (indicated by the blue beacon).

You could quickly see that your friend is currently near 7th and 1st. You could quickly see that another friend gave Abraco on 7th St. raving reviews. Now, you can make a more informed decision on your Saturday morning coffee, with a little help from your friends. And, better yet, you can enjoy it with one as well.

Imagine how powerful this could be for you, the consumer. Google could also benefit more by adding Local Ads to the mix to promote local discounts and target against “locations not visited by friends” and “locations visited by friends”, depending on your angle.

Want to fight web spam and push local relevance? It might come down to the one thing we can’t live without: good friends.

Not sure if this has hit the media yet, but I just noticed that the map in Yelp is now powered by Bing. It appears it’s not 100% rolled out yet, as different cities give you different engines.

First, fighting words over Hotpot and Content Syndication, now, break ups and going separate ways… next, maybe Google will buy Yelp’s affection back and offer to buy Yelp again.

So, to be clear… companies that fell out of love with Google:

1)      Yelp

2)      Apple

3)      Most television networks

4)      JCPenny…

But hey, if no one hates you, you’re not doing it right, right? Right?

That, and I’m pretty sure Google’s little black book ain’t so little these days.

A month ago, sniffling from office germs, I sat down to watch Funny People, the 2009 Judd Apatow comedy featuring Adam Sandler and Seth Rogan. The most interesting part of the two hours I could sit through was George Simmon’s/Adam Sandler’s performance at a Myspace corporate event. This was enthralling to me because I hadn’t thought about MySpace since I shut down my profile last December.

Back in 2006, I couldn’t decide between MySpace and Facebook. MySpace was customizable and catered to music lovers. Facebook was rigid in design and seemed to focus more on relationships, whether it be with people or the things we love. Today, computers and mobile phones are saturated with more exciting choices – we tweet with Twitter, check in with Foursquare, kvetch on Yelp and, well…facebook with Facebook. Consumers make sure they’re dedicating time to managing personality extensions that are worth their while.

Take a look at interest in MySpace over the past few years:

This scathing little article, written back in October 2009, succinctly describes MySpace’s current presence. In “Social Network Failure: What Happened to MySpace? #fail,” Kyle James writes that “it will never be the same beast that claimed over 75% of the market.” Other disruptors have prevailed in the social media battleground because they continued to innovate and listen to consumers, while figuring out sustainability.

Dan Reisinger reports in his CNet blog, The Digital Home: “’We’ve been clear that MySpace is a problem,’ News Corp. President and COO Chase Carey said yesterday during [a call with analysts]. ‘The current losses are not acceptable or sustainable. Our current management did not create these losses but they know we have to address them.’” Over the past two months, MySpace rolled out a spiffy new logo and a site redesign, catered toward Gen Y, and now claims to be a “social entertainment platform.”

Is anyone even paying attention? Is there hope?

Last night, Facebook announced the launch of Facebook Places at their headquarters in Palo Alto, California.  Facebook Places is a location-based check-in service that allows users to share where they are, find out where their friends are and discover places in their area. Users can also tag friends when they check in, something that other services do not currently offer. The service allows businesses to create or claim Places on Facebook and encourage users to check in. Eventually this could lead to the ability to offer discounts or promotional messages to users at a location or nearby.

Location based check-in services have been growing in popularity and it’s been hard to ignore the rumors and hype surrounding the launch of Facebook’s own product. The big question has been: will a Facebook check-in service destroy competitor applications?

During the announcement, Zuckerburg joked about all the features Facebook would not be integrating into the new platform.  However in a dazzling display of netizenship, Facebook decided to play nice with Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp and Booya (the makers of MyTown). While Facebook will continue to port over all your social good from the most popular location-based services, the impact on these competitors remains to be seen. According to the most recent Mashable poll, only 30% of people say they will use the service (but another 30% responded “Maybe: I’m going to wait and see”), suggesting adoption may start off slow.

Much like Social Graph, Places promises to unify even more data from across the web. It is only a matter of time before Facebook launches other services such as: peer to peer payment systems, similar to Paypal, group deal sites, similar to Groupon, and online classifieds, similar to Craigslist.

According to comScore, as of July Facebook is the third largest video site in the U.S. Last March the Private Data Equity Center valued Facebook at $35 Billion. InsideFacebook.com states they are projected to hit $1.1 Billion in ad sales revenue after hitting 700 million in 2009. With these numbers, we’re not to far away from saying, “Hey I’ll just Facebook you the money,” or “Just sell it on Facebook.”

Are you going to use Facebook Places? What’s next for Facebook? We want to hear from you!