• The Wall Street Journal et al., Friday, August 20, 2010 3:51 PM

From Foursquare's rewritten future to Google's likely response, the analysis surrounding Facebook's new location-based Places initiative continues to roll in. According to The Wall Street Journal, Facebook Places represents a serious threat to Google's pursuit of local ad dollars.

"It paves the way for [Facebook] to become a player in the growing Web business of supplying local information and advertising," writes The Journal. "Now they are both after local-ad dollars."

In April, the search giant actually launched its own "Places" service, which builds on prior Google business listings, and offers up Web pages dedicated to individual businesses, showing where they are located, street-level images, and customer reviews. Businesses can also advertise through their Google Place pages.

For months, it's been an open question as to whether Facebook's highly-anticipated Places initiative would blow Foursquare out of the water, or take the service (and the entire LBS industry) to new heights.

At least for now, "It appears that the latter is happening," reports TechCrunch.

On Thursday, Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley tweeted, "Just heard from The @HarryH that today was @foursquare's biggest day ever in terms of new user signups," referring to Harry Heymann, Foursquare's engineering lead.

"I've long been in the camp that believed Facebook's entry into the location space would help a lot of these other check-in startups -- at least initially," said TechCrunch's MG Siegler. "Thanks to the Places API, Facebook is currently serving as a platform for services like Foursquare and Gowalla. And thanks to their 500 million users, Facebook is introducing the concept of location to millions of new users."

"Many pundits insisted that the entry of a juggernaut like Facebook into the space will inevitably eliminate all room for competition," writes PC Magazine. "For now, at least, Foursquare seems to be doing gangbusters, and the service apparently has Facebook Places to thank."

In response to a question from another Twitter user, Foursquare's Crowley said it's: "still very early in the space. Who ever thought someone would beat Yahoo at search?"

"Is Foursquare the Google to Facebook's Yahoo?" asks GigaOm's Mathew Ingram. Perhaps. Crowley told [GigaOm founder Om Malik] recently that the company is close to launching a number of new features for the service that will make it even more engaging, and presumably widen the gap with Facebook's new offering."

Still, added TechCrunch's Siegler: "All that said, Foursquare does have to be concerned about what Facebook is going to do in the future."

Read the whole story at The Wall Street Journal et al. »