The location based marketing services landscape just shifted. Heavily.

Facebook Places, their answer to the check-in game, is shutting down. Not a major shocker. Sure, there was activity, relegated mostly to larger metropolitan areas. I used it two times – once at a restaurant to show my friends how it worked and once at a concert with my wife. No rewards, no tips, no to-do’s. Not even a goofy badge to show off.

Businesses failed to promote the check-in activity, presumably from a lack of support or a defined benefit. I tried to find the opportunity to leverage Facebook Places for Auction Direct, but it didn’t make sense. A lack of purpose, rewards and trust made it difficult for anyone to make checking-in within Facebook a consistent activity. Most users probably won’t even notice the service isn’t even available once shut down.

Killing off Facebook’s Places leaves me thinking about three items:

• Great opportunity for Foursquare to pick up additional activity from Places users
• New opportunities for niche check-in platforms such as GetGlue
• Niche location and photo-sharing applications will have had a longer life than Places, such a CarZar. And possibly even more users, such as Foodspotting.

Will you miss Facebook Places?

Update: Ok, so location as a feature hasn’t been shut off 100%. It just won’t function as it did before – completely pointless. The mobile app hasn’t been updated yet, but the web version has. Still pointless to me, yet shows Facebook is looking to change how location based services fit into their platform. Not quite sure what that change will look like seeing that Facebook Deals has been axed as well. Stay tuned.