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McDonald's, Facebook Team Up to Offer Location-Based Obesity

by Amar Toor on May 7, 2010 at 10:40 AM

McDonalds on Facebook
Facebook has made clear its intent to incorporate location-based technology into its platform. And McDonald's has made clear its intent to shed its unhealthy, fatty factory image. So the two have joined forces to bring location-based services to the world's most sedentary population: McDonald's customers. Soon, fast food fanatics will be able to check in on Facebook from any McDonald's restaurant, thanks to a new location-based Facebook app that the company is currently developing. According to AdAge, the app will also let customers include specific McDonald's products in their posts, for those moments when you really need to tell the world about that quarter-pounder, Big Mac or any other heart disease special you just scarfed down. No word yet on whether or not the geolocation service extends to the operating table.

This isn't the first time, of course, that corporations or retailers have gotten in on the location-based action. Starbucks, Pepsi and MTV have all launched individual campaigns on Foursquare, in an attempt to boost their offline business. Facebook's foray into Foursquare and Gowalla territory, however, is still very much a work-in-progress. As the company's director of national sales Kevin Colleran says, "We're still trying to figure out what our strategy is." Colleran went on to say that the social network will not try to monetize its geolocation services. "We never launch a functionality with the intent of monetizing it," he maintained, citing the site's free mobile app as a perfect example of that altruistic ethos. Although it's the most widely used mobile app in the world, "We don't make a single dime off it," Colleran said. "And that is our intent."

Facebook typically doesn't charge developers for creating new apps on its platform, and, true to its word, isn't charging McDonald's for its new app either. Executives close to the deal, however, say that it was negotiated as part of some larger media deal, so it's almost certain that money changed hands at some point -- otherwise, they probably wouldn't do it. And with other retailers reportedly lining up to follow in Mickey D's footsteps, it seems like only a matter of time before we start seeing corporate status updates pop up across our news feeds. We can't say we're excited about the trend, but if it can encourage fast food patrons to actually start changing locations, it may have some upside. [From: AdAge]

Tags: facebook, FacebookApps, FourSquare, geolocation, location, location based services, LocationBasedServices, McDonalds, mososo, top, web

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