The Hotlist, a trend-tracker that shows you “what’s going on today, tomorrow and throughout the week among your personal network of friends”, announced this morning that the service will begin integrating the Facebook Places API.
Unlike other services location-based services (LBS) like Yelp or Gowalla, which rely upon building a critical mass of users, The Hotlist aggregates data from a number of services to build trending topics.
When we tested out the service’s new iPhone app earlier this month, we noted that “instead of tapping into the niche market of LBS users to find local hotspots, The Hotlist figured out a different way to surface these so-called ‘geo-trends’: by tapping into Facebook and Twitter instead.” Now, that Facebook data will include its own check-ins, not just events, and potentially check-in data from a number of popular LBS apps. While we haven’t seen any numbers yet, the potential for Facebook Places could easily surpass that of Foursquare’s 3 million or Gowalla’s 350,000 users. Facebook, by comparison, has more than 500 million users worldwide.
Chris Mirabile, co-CEO of The Hotlist, said in the release that the addition of the Facebook Places API data will only strengthen the service.
“The new API for Facebook Places will further strengthen The Hotlist’s position and value in the location-based service space, and we’re excited that more people will be able to access more relevant data no matter where they are,” said Mirabile.
According to the company, the service currently holds information on nearly 3 million upcoming events, more than 48 million users’ plans and 318 million “future check ins” at more than 919,000 venues worldwide.
