Facebook Places Means Goodbye FourSquare. Google Beware.

Facebook is at it again. Just when you had become Mayor of the local coffee shop, Facebook Places kills the app that brought you to power. It won’t be the last thing to say “goodbye” as Facebook continues to grow. Google should beware.

Next up? Yelp. Why go to another app for reviews when your friends on Facebook have been to the eatery you're considering (via Places) and left their reviews? Maybe Yelp is smart and cuts a deal to overlay their reviews onto the Facebook Place at which you plan to dine. We'll see.

If you’re AOL, name one good reason why I should download your clunky AIM software when whoever I want to chat with is already on Facebook. I could go on like this for hours and you could probably name several within minutes.

So, let me cut to the chase -- How long til Facebook and Google go head-to-head?

You might say that they already have. Facebook dominates social networking so Google introduced “Buzz”. However, there was no buzz. We'll count that one to the win column for Facebook. Then as more people turned to Bing for search, Google takes on Bing like attributes. Well, Bing is the search tool on Facebook. Hmmm.

That battle is a long way from over but Facebook has at least made their intent clear. Take on Google. And, they're big enough to do it.

Facebook is huge because it is the Internet to over half-a-billion people. It now drives anywhere from 25% to 45% of the traffic to websites analyzed by Bigfish. Speaking of driving, Nielsen says the growth of mobile among women on-the-go (who by the way are social media first, search later) clipped along at plus 40% the first half of this year. 9 out of 10 of these same women say that they post to Facebook via mobile.

So it's the future. Okay, it's really today but to many this will sound futuristic. It's the scene from a car pool line via Facebook chat on an iPhone: “Hey Susie, I just saw that you checked in at the soccer complex (Places). There is a coffee shop around the corner with great lattes (Yelp overlay). Oh, I see you’ve been there before (Gowalla). No I didn’t Google it (Duh). This is Facebook girlfriend.”

Have thoughts? I'm on Twitter (at least for now) www.twitter.com/timbigfish