• Business Insider, Friday, May 7, 2010 3:44 PM

Business Insider doesn't necessarily believe that Facebook's forthcoming "check-in" feature means curtains for existing location-based networks like Foursquare, Loopt, and Gowalla. "We think Facebook won't try to set itself up as an alternative to these services, but rather as an integral part of them," it writes. "Location data from all of them will end up on Facebook, making it the primary owner of where you are ... But Facebook won't compete directly with all of the value that these services add to that data."

With regard to Facebook's far-reaching Open Graph initiative, Business Insider believes that the top social net aspires to put its brand on "absolutely everything." As such, "making the Foursquares and Loopts go through Facebook would be more in line with this strategy than would competing with them." For Foursquare's sake, we hope BI is right.

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