News that Facebook has thrown its weight into the location-based offers and promotions market is likely to turn up the heat on the competition in what could prove to be a lucrative area for brands. The new application, Deals, allows brands to direct offers to Facebook users that “check in” to locations via the social network on their mobiles. 

Brands can then use the platform to push a cross section of promotional offers to Deals users, ranging from one-time discounts and free merchandise, to loyalty deals rewarding regular customers, friend deals when two friends check in together and charity deals which allow businesses to donate to an organisation when customers check in. 

This was always the logical progression after the launch of Facebook Places, and follows applications like FourSquare into the location based marketing arena. However, the problem the other location-based services are going to have is the huge market penetration Facebook already has which makes it much more attractive to global brands. The fact that big names such as Starbucks, O2 and Yo! Sushi have already signed up to the platform in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain is a clear indication of this. 

As further indication that this particular sector is hotting up, Google has also announced an update to its latitude platform, which now allows users to also ‘check in’ at places. When used in conjunction with the search giant’s Hotpot application, which is its own local recommendation engine, this will also allow for a social location-based network as well as local advertising opportunities.

What will be really interesting to see is which of these three becomes the biggest player in this field. Will it be FourSquare as one of the pioneers of the whole “check in” concept, will Facebook triumph thanks to its massive social reach or will it be Google, which some might see as having joined the party too late. I’m sure we’ll find out before 2011 is done.