McDonald's and Facebook Teaming Up

TechNewsWorld reports that McDonald's is one of the early partners in Facebook's location-based feature that's in development.

What's a "location-based feature"? Facebook is essentially mirroring popular social-network platforms such as Foursquare and Gowalla, which allow you to share your current location via Geo-tagging (a GPS-like function). The idea behind Foursquare is rather simple: when you're out and about, you can "check in" at each location you go to, letting your social networks know where you are and what you're doing there. But you don't just walk into a spot and automatically update yourself-- one has to physically run the Foursquare program to "check in."

Facebook is hoping to catch this recent wave of "I'm right here, right now" through their status updates -- and McDonald's would use your location to create an advertisement for a McRib (or whatever), in an attempt to divert your body into the nearest Golden Arches location.

As TechNewsWorld points out, the McDonald's Facebook page is already incorporating a "get local" aspect, where you enter your zip code for personalized specials based on where you live. It still seems to be in a beta version though -- when we entered our New York City zip code, we were told that the features aren't available just yet.

Still, aside from providing an on-the-go ability to lure in customers, McDonald's also has a chance to connect with consumers depending on their patronage. One of Foursquare's defining features is a reward system for those who frequently visit the same establishments over and over. So if you consistently update your Facebook status in the same McDonald's, they could hypothetically start rewarding your patronage with special deals that other customers wouldn't necessarily be privy to.

Saving money and free apple pies is always a good thing but the downside to all of this is that McDonald's (and others that follow suit) will be collecting valuable marketing demographic based upon your Facebook profile -- Ronald and company potentially have access to their customer's like never before.

Facebook fans and those avoiding fast food, fear not -- you'll be able to opt out of the location-based feature.

Read more: http://www.slashfood.com/2010/05/10/mcdonalds-and-facebook-teaming-up/#ixzz0ncklLimd