Facebook Helps Stores Show You More with Place Tips
Remember that time when you could simply walk into a store, buy what you needed and get out? Nowadays, it's all about the money so the music from the stores makes you want to buy stuff, the merchandise is arranged in such a way that you have to see everything before getting to the basic stuff and even the coloring sends subliminal messages. That's all just to make the customer spend as much as possible. From now on, things may get even more annoying as Facebook is releasing a new tool called Place Tips which will ping your phone with feeds from the store you're currently shopping in.
At the moment, the service only works in US-based stores and the system that it uses is pretty interesting. Stores will install diamond-shaped beacons on their walls, which use Bluetooth connections to find phones within their area. Once you have been located, the service will send you content from the business's Facebook page or posts from your friends related to respective store to the top of your News Feed. Tapping the notifications will not trigger an automatic post from your account and will not share your location with others. Furthermore, in order for this to work you need to have the Place Tips service activated, to share your location with Facebook and keep your Bluetooth connection on.
Facebook first began experimenting with Place Tips in January by enabling it in a small number of stores throughout New York. Now, the company is expending the service to all the small and mid-sized businesses in the US. Of course this isn't only good for the stores themselves (as they now have an easier way to share relevant information with the interested customers), but also for Facebook, which could convince smaller businesses to purchase advertising space.
