So what will Facebook Places look like? There are some great theories. AdAge ran an exclusive that McDonald’s would be one of the first major participants in the program and last month’s local business decals will also play a major role. Whatever the case we will know in less than a month. For now, let’s ponder the possibilities of what this could mean long term:

There are 400 million Facebook users and 100 million access the network from their mobile phones, making the service the largest social network and largest mobile application in the world. Overnight these people will have the ability to begin sharing their real world activities, posting status updates that are linked to a particular place, time and user. This will immediately render FourSquare, Gowalla and MyTown – all popular location based apps – irrelevant. The current batch of location apps have three million users combined. Facebook will have more than 100 times this! At first the vast majority of Facebook users will be wary of location (just as they were wary of joining the social network in the first place). But when they begin deriving value from the experience they too will begin checking in.

What might that value look like? Seeing where your friends are is interesting, but users are already doing this in their text based status messages. The most obvious value proposition is getting location based deals, “Check in for a free Big Mac.” But these kinds of deals are really early adopter, publicity ploys that immediately stale after half a dozen businesses in your area have done it. The bigger “deal” play will be mobile coupons and advertising. The ability for Facebook to push ads and deals to you based not only on your demographic information that you have loaded your profile with, but also your current location.

Even so, these obvious revenue drivers, maybe to obvious, not to mention controversial for Facebook. Here’s a scenario that combines the Open Graph and Faceboook places. I walk into a restaurant and check in. But this time I’m not checking in to announce my place to the world, or search for a happy hour special, instead I’m looking to see which of my friends have already eaten here, which one’s liked it and (which didn’t).

Finally, there is the social credit rating play. Facebook already has a pretty good sense of who you are online. They know who you are friends with. They know your demographics, education and work background. They even no your interests and likes. What they don’t know is where you go in the real world, how you spend your day and how you spend your money. Places will give them most of that information (expect a payment system to shortly follow). This means that Facebook will have the clearest picture of what kind of person you are. This kind of profile has never been seen before in marketing. Not even close. People are still buying mailing lists based on what magazines people subscribe to for god sakes! With Facebook Places you will now be able to market to a person based on:

1) Age, Gender, Education Level

2) What they are interested in

3) Where they live

4) Where they are at this moment

5) Where they spend their money (full purchase history to come)

6) How much money they spend

7) What they just bought!!!!!!!

I call this a social credit rating, because what this leads to is the division of customers based on their lifetime value. If I’m Starbucks and I know that a coffee conosouir that usually goes to Peet’s just walked into my shop, I’m going to compete for the business by offering a free cup of coffee and a pastry.