Last week Facebook announced in its privacy setting updates that it was doing away with the Places feature on smartphones and integrating location into posts.  This seems like a big win for Foursquare but I hope that Facebook hasn’t thrown in the towel on check-ins yet.

While larger urban area may have a higher Foursquare usage than smaller cities, at the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge, it seems that Facebook Places wins the check-in battle with 280 check-ins versus  237 on Foursquare. While this is by no means a blowout, it is enough to ask why Facebook would forfeit, especially when Facebook Places has the distinct advantage of being more social than Foursquare solely because it already a part of an established social network that most people and their dogs are on.

What will be interesting to see is how Facebook will integrate check-in deals with the new location sharing platform. And if it works, how soon until Twitter does something similar?

Winner takes it all
Loser takes a fall
Fight to the beginning of the end
Winner takes it all
‘Til he breaks the fall
In time he’ll make it over the top