Facebook Serious about "Places"

So serious that Facebook bought Hot Potato, an online "check-in" service that lets users report their whereabouts and activities to friends, the company announced on Friday.

It is the most recent development in Facebook's efforts to juice up the location-based aspect of its hugely popular service, which lets people connect with friends and family via the Web and share thoughts, links, photos, and more.

This week Facebook unveiled Facebook Places, a feature that enables Facebook account holders to advertise their current location to friends, and lets users of check-in sites such as Foursquare to  post such location-based reports to those sites and to Facebook at the same time.

 Hot Potato didn't give any financial details of the buyout. Figures tossed around during earlier, and ultimately fruitless, buyout talks between Facebook and Foursquare were in the neighborhood of $120 million to $140 million, but at this point it's anyone's guess as to whether such figures are apropos to the Hot Potato acquisition.

Hot Potato said it was no longer accepting new registrations for its service and that it would give current users some time to download the information they'd posted to Hot Potato, should they want to preserve it in some way. The service also said that in about a month, it would shut its doors and all user data would be deleted, and not automatically passed on to Facebook. The company said it would keep current users posted until then.

Location-based check-in services have been generating buzz for some time now, with services like Hot Potato putting a new spin on pioneer Foursquare's initial model, where friends share their neighborhood secrets.

What will be Facebook's next move?