Recently, we launched the Inside Network Job Board – dedicated to providing you with the best job opportunities in the Facebook Platform and social gaming ecosystem.

Here are this week’s highlights from the Inside Network Job Board, including positions at AdParlor, NaturalMotion, EA, Fuel Industries, FreshPlanet, and World Golf Tour.

• Strategic Account Manager (Toronto)

• Senior Designer – Social Games (San Francisco)

• Software Test Engineer – EA2D (Redwood City)

• Flash Developer (Ottawa)
  
• Business Analyst (Ottowa)
  
• Web Developer (Ottowa)
  
• Art Director (Ottowa)

• Google App engine / Python Expert (New York)

• Senior Game Designer (San Francisco)

Listings on the Inside Network Job Board are distributed to readers of Inside Facebook and Inside Social Games through regular posts and widgets on the sites. That way, you can be sure that your open positions are being seen by the leading developers, product managers, marketers, designers, and executives in the Facebook Platform and social gaming industry today.

Facebook is currently rolling out access to its new Places feature to the Facebook for iPhone app and touch.facebook.com. Those with access can check in to nearby locations, view a stream of check-ins by friends, and add new Places for anyone to be able to check-in to. Those whose accounts haven’t been granted access can still use the iPhone app to view check-ins of friends. Everyone can currently see check-ins from friends in their news feeds, and edit their Places privacy settings.

Places appears as a button in the middle of the iPhone home screen and a tab on the touch.facebook.com home screen. Upon first using Places, users are prompted to allow it to use their current location. The Places home screen shows your latest check-in at the top, followed by a list of friends who’ve checked-in nearby, then a list of the most recent check-ins by friend regardless of location.

Clicking any of these entries brings up that location’s Places page. Here you’ll see a map of where the Place is, anyone who is “here now” (have recently check-in in there), total check-ins, and recent activity — a list of feed stories generated by check-ins to that place. These feed stories show who checked in there, anyone they tagged as also being present, a description by the check-in author if provided, and any likes or comments on the story. Users can also flag Places as having incorrect info, being abusive (such a someone creating a Place at your Mom’s house), being a business which has permanently closed, or being a duplicate of another Place. On Facebook.com, users can click through check-ins they see on their news feed to view a Place’s page.

Clicking “Check In” at the top of the Places home screen, or by clicking the upside down teardrop Places icon next to the status update publisher brings up a list of suggested nearby Places. Selecting one brings up the check-in publisher page, where a user can fill out the optional “What are you doing?” field, tag friends who are also present, and check in, as well as see people “Here Now”, and view previous check-ins to that Place. Checking in results in a post to your wall, the wall of anyone tagged, feeds of your friends, the wall of the Place, and you appear in the “Here Now” list to anyone, friend or otherwise, who checks in to the same Place. Check-ins peg you as being “Here Now” for 3-4 hours. There is currently no limit to how frequently you can check in to different Places, and you can check in anywhere within a half mile of your GPS-sourced location.

If you don’t see the Place you want to check in to, you can hit the “Add” or + sign to enter a new Place which will be available to the public for check-ins. You enter the new Place’s name, an optional description of it, and its location is set as your current location. Facebook shows users a warning when adding a Place to ensure they know that this data is public. Maps for Places are powered by Bing, so clicking a map on touch.facebook.com will bring up a separate mobile browser window with a Bing map. However, clicking a map on the iPhone app brings up Google’s in-Facebook app map interface with an option to open the Google Maps iPhone app.

Businesses can claim a Place by having an official representative go to the Places page and click “Is this your business?” This gives that representative admin access to the Place, which gains Page-like functionality such as the ability to list business information and post updates to those that Like the Places page, but not those who only check in. A Place can also then be merged with an official Page. This essentially migrates your existing Likes, photos, and wall posts from your Page to the Place page, and shows your Page’s tabs as a list of icons down the left hand column.

Privacy settings for Places data must be set on the fixed web version of Facebook.com. Places activity posted to your profile defaults to only being visible to friends. Other users can check you in at Places by default, but if you don’t have Places access you’ll receive permission emails asking you to allow friend check-ins until you click “Allow” in an email or enable them in your privacy settings. If you have Places access, you’ll receive a notification upon being checked in asking you to “Allow check-ins”, or “Not Now” – which means you’ll be asked each time you’re checked in.

Facebook has allowed sites using Connect and third-party applications to access your Places data and that of your friends if they acquire permission from you. Unless you have deactivated the Facebook Platform or unchecked all “info available through my friends” boxes in Application Settings, Places data will default to be available to apps of friends.

“Here Now” presents the biggest privacy concern, as currently you can only enable or disable being visible to everyone who checks in to the same Place as you. There is no granular control for this option. “Here Now” defaults to enabled if you have any of your existing privacy settings for other content set to “Everyone”, even something as benign as your favorite quotation or birthday. Since there seems to be no limit on frequency of check-ins, and you only need to be with a half mile of a Place to check in, someone could check-in all over town as a way of locating someone else who isn’t their friend.

Overall, Places presents a seamless way to share your location, and the ability to tag friends is an innovative differentiation from other location-based apps. Currently there is no way to view a stream of only check-ins by friends on Facebook.com. This ability to be at home and see that three friends are at a bar around the corner is key to getting people out of the house and using the app. If Facebook adds this, as well as granular privacy controls for “Here Now”, changes more data to be opt-in than opt-out, and lets users control Places privacy settings through the mobile interfaces, they may have found their new killer app.

As part of the updates to its Platform product roadmap that Facebook posted today, the company says it is deprecating a few things.

The first is application tabs on user profiles. Originally introduced around the period of time in which Facebook was initially booting profile boxes off the profile page, Facebook says today that it will be removing app tabs in Q4 2010 due to “low usage rates.” After the removal of app tabs from the profile, and the upcoming removal of the boxes tab, only tabs devoted to Facebook’s in-house applications like Photos, Videos, Places, and Notes will remain.

In addition, Facebook has posted that many of its old REST API methods would no longer be supported after the end of the year (full list here). Instead, developers should be using Facebook’s newer Graph APIs.

Finally, Facebook says it would be deprecating the <fb:editor>, <fb:board>, <fb:wall> and <fb:feed> FBML tags, as well as the Data Store API, by the end of the year.

Facebook today is announcing new updates to its Platform product roadmap to give developers more visibility on what’s coming down the pipe. One of the more important notes for developers of both canvas applications and application tabs for Pages is that Facebook is moving toward IFrames over FBML.

First, Facebook says that by the end of this year, it will “no longer allow new FBML applications to be created, so all new canvas applications and Page tabs will have to be based on IFrames and our JavaScript SDK.” However, Facebook says it will “continue to support existing implementations of the older authentication mechanism as well as FBML on Page tabs and applications.”

This marks the completion of a shift since the Platform launched in 2007. Originally, Facebook encouraged developers to built their apps in FBML, Facebook’s Platform-specific markup language, while apps built with iFrames experienced some functionality limits.  However, over time developers (and Facebook) have moved toward the iFrame model, which offers some architectural benefits, as explained well by former Facebook Platform engineering lead Charlie Cheever.

Second, Facebook says that it will begin supporting IFrames for Page tabs “in the next few months.” This means that the way developers build applications on Page tabs will be consistent with the dominant way they are built on canvas pages, which should simplify development processes (and support costs).

Finally, Facebook says it will begin using OAuth 2.0 for authentication on all Facebook apps on Facebook.com, the web, and mobile devices. Developers can start testing the “OAuth 2.0 for Canvas” migration on the app settings page, which Facebooks says “will become the default for all new applications during the next couple months.”

Facebook has been expanding its business and customer service operations, judging by our review of Facebook’s  Career Page and our review of its listings since our story last week. And it has also been featuring its new Seattle engineering office at the top of the Page.

Positions that have been taken down since our post last week include some in the areas of corporate communications, data analytics, recruiting, IT (in India and Palo Alto), an account executive position in Singapore.

Jobs pertaining to online/platform operations are also no longer listed on the Careers Page, a fraud investigator positions was gone and several marketing positions were also absent from the list this week.

Also, the company no longer lists its Director of Global Facilities and Real Estate Management position this week.

It is most likely that these positions have been filled, although it’s possible they were renamed or not filled.

A few new listings this week: Communication designer, content strategist, data analyst-platform, product marketing communications manager-ads, operations managers, sales account managers, build engineer and quantitative business analyst.

Facebook seems to be gearing up for hiring in India, as several new positions for recruiters have been listed in the company’s Hyderabad offices: Lead recruiter, recruiter-contractor and recruiting coordinator-contractor. Facebook is also seeking a contracted recruiting coordinator at its Palo Alto offices.

An administrative assistant position has also been listed in India and a physical security manager position has appeared, which may be because people and equipment are beginning to fill the office.

Online operations positions are opening in Europe and Palo Alto, most of them directed at user and platform operations, and fraud analysis.

At Facebook’s Places launch earlier tonight, Facebook said that read and search APIs would be going live soon for all developers, while write APIs would indefinitely remain in “private beta” with a limited set of partners for now. Now, Facebook’s Graph API documentation says that the read and search APIs will be available starting “on or after” tomorrow, Thursday afternoon, at 2:00pm US PT.

Given that Facebook has only worked with a few launch partners in testing Places so far, there’s a significant amount of greenfield before the developer community to take advantage of the new Places APIs. Games, local commerce, event tools, travel, and many other types of apps on the Facebook Platform are going to be able to be significantly more engaging to users now that Places data is available. Here’s how Facebook’s Places API rollout is working:

First, Facebook has created new extended permissions for Places. To be able to get a user’s check-ins, developers will need to request the “user_checkins” extended permission. To be able to get a user’s friends’ check-ins as well, developers will request the “friends_checkins” extended permission.

Once that is done, Facebook says developers can do 3 things starting tomorrow:

1. You can get details on individual check-ins

GET https://graph.facebook.com/[checkin_id]

2. You can get a list of check-in information about specific places, Pages, or users

GET https://graph.facebook.com/[place/Page/user_id]/checkins

3. You can search for recent check-ins for an authorized user and his or her friends

GET https://graph.facebook.com/search?type=checkin&access_token=ACCESS_TOKEN

With its trove of user location data, Facebook has the power to enable new classes of location-powered applications to reach the mass market for the first time, driving significant value to businesses and developers. At the same time, of course, Facebook’s approach to privacy with Places will be watched closely by developers and privacy advocates who want to more clearly understand how Facebook will respond to issues that arise as a result of these features over time. Facebook’s default privacy settings for Places is “friends only,” but there will likely be instances of users tagging friends in situations they didn’t want that might make them upset, and rogue developers could abuse access to user location data.

We expect to see many new developers with particular interests in mobile, local, e-commerce, travel, and gaming jumping onto the Facebook Platform over the coming weeks. However, Facebook hasn’t set any clear expectations around when “write” functionality will be enabled for developers (i.e. enabling users to check into Places through apps), so until Facebook opens up its APIs to more developers, apps (aside from those by Facebook’s launch partners) will be limited to search-and-read functionality.

As location-based checkin services have gained steam amongst early adopters over the last couple of years, many users have discovered that they can lead to serendipitous interactions between friends that wouldn’t otherwise have occurred. For instance, if you’re at a coffee shop, and a friend checks in at a store nearby, it might be a good opportunity to walk over and chat for a minute to catch up, or maybe grab lunch together.

So far, only relatively small numbers of people have used such services – in the range of a few million. Now, Facebook is giving location-based functionality throughout its platform, giving its users in the United States the opportunity to share their location with their friends, and see which friends are nearby. Facebook’s rollout of Places will drastically expand the “check-in” market, and make the serendipitous saying-hi-to-a-friend-nearby experience a much more common part of everyday life.

Of course, it will take some time for everyone to learn how Facebook Places works, and for people to collectively determine what the implicit social norms around such a service will be.  And Facebook is only rolling out the full set of features to US users for now. But Facebook, for the first time, will be introducing these features to the mass market – not just people who like trying out the latest apps in the app store. It will definitely lead to some interesting interactions – and opportunities for developers and marketers – in the months ahead.

The latest example of Facebook’s strategic partnership with Microsoft arrived today, along with the company’s new Places location service. Maps from Bing will now be featured as the default maps when in all Places interfaces. This means the web site, mobile web site and in mobile apps including the iPhone one.

Google Maps, the third-party mapping service that many other tech companies choose to use, is obviously not appearing.

[Update: While the Microsoft blog post about this says that the iPhone app is using Bing, the iPhone app is currently using Google Maps.]

Here’s how you’ll be seeing the maps in the interface, in the words of the Bing Community Blog:

Select the Places button, find the location where you are and check-in. Just like that, the check-in will flow to your profile on Facebook.com complete with a Bing Map, a pin of your location and any commentary you’ve added to your check-in. Places also includes the ability to see where your friends have checked in, a link to get directions to a place (via Bing Maps) and a Like button for the respective place page. The place information bubbles up to the actual Places page which has a larger map experience, plus an update for you to see all of your friends who’ve visited that location.

Facebook is taking a platform approach to location, launching its new service with developer partners including Booyah, Foursquare and Gowalla in tow.

In this sense, while Facebook is positioned to be the biggest player in social, location-sharing with its 500 million users, it isn’t aiming to put other location-based apps out of business.

A handful of developers, who learned about the new Places application programming interface a few weeks ago, built special apps or features just for the launch.

Yelp will let users share check-ins, photos and stories about local businesses with Facebook friends. Booyah is launching a new app called In-Crowd that’s “half-game, half-utility”, according to chief executive Keith Lee. Users can find friends by location and then respond with in-game actions like “booting them in the rear” or “sending them a wink.” Players also win in-game points to upgrade their personal avatars.

“The location graph is getting bigger and bigger,” Lee said. “The key today is that Facebook Places is integrated with the biggest social graph out there. It’s pretty mind-blowing.”

Gowalla and Foursquare are largely keeping the look and feel of their apps the same. Foursquare’s vice president of partnerships Holger Luedorf said the company’s building better to-do tips.

For all other developers, Facebook has added Places to the Graph API so that developers can access a user’s and their friends check-ins. There are three parts to the API: read, write and search. With read, a developer can see nearby places with activity from friends. With write, third-party developers can check in their friends to Places on Facebook. Lastly, there’s search, which lets third-party apps look for places within a certain mile radius or at a certain latitude and longitude.

The read API will be available to developers starting tomorrow, but the write API is still part of a closed beta for now, Facebook said.

Lee said it was difficult to compare the places APIs from Facebook and Google, which launched its own API earlier this year.

“It’s still pretty early to tell how the APIs [from Facebook and Google] compare. But Facebook’s API has been very accurate so far,” he said.

Lee said while games are differentiated enough that Places won’t threaten them, other location-based services might have to work a bit harder to show that they offer an experience above and beyond what Facebook has.

“I think a lot of the big value proposition for other location-based apps is the social experience,” he said “The value props for other apps may not really be there with this new Faceobok feature. But Foursquare — with their scale — may be able to monetize a lot better than other location apps based on social utility.”

One of the thorniest issues Facebook is confronting with the launch of its long-awaited location features has been privacy. After concerns erupted earlier this spring that the company was being too cavalier with privacy, Facebook’s engineers and product managers have been careful to announce a thorough set of controls with its new location-sharing service.

With the new product, Facebook is attempting to expand the existing paradigm of “check-ins” with a new feature that will let users tag friends at places.

Users will not only be able to temporarily share their whereabouts, as they do on other popular apps like Foursquare and Gowalla, they’ll also be able to check their friends into places. That’s a fundamentally different option than what other location-based services have allowed in the past. In other apps, users have had to explicitly share their own location.

Naturally, Facebook has established a set of privacy controls to complement the new features. When users share their location, the default setting is to their friends only. Users can also narrow the number of friends they share their whereabouts to as few as they want.

When users tag other friends in their status updates, those friends will have to select an option called “Allow” before their location is shared with others. If they click an option called “Not Now,” then they could be mentioned in a friend’s status update, but it won’t change their location information. There’s also an option to turn off letting friends check you in.

When users check into a place, other people at the place may be able to see that they’re there for a short time. Third-party applications may also access location information, but they have to request permission for it first. Users can also turn off location-sharing with third-party developers.

The new controls haven’t thwarted criticism of the company’s approach to privacy, though.

The American Civil Liberties Union said Facebook had “failed to build in some other important privacy safeguards.” It said users had no option to turn off the “Here Now” feature, which shares their location with others at the same place, when they check-in. It also said offering a “Not Now,” but not a “No” button to turn off location-tagging by friends stopped short of giving users genuine control.