Scott Raymond, CEO of Gowalla; Holger Luedorf, FourSquare VP of mobile & partnerships; Eric Singley, director of mobile products at Yelp; and Keith Lee, CEO of Booyah stepped up to the podium to talk about how they perceive the new service. Unsurprisingly, all four sounded bullish on Places, though at times the tone seemed a bit desperate.

Holger Luedorf of FourSquare used his time at the podium to answer the question on everybody's mind: "This basically validates that we're onto something and that we're adding value," said Lueforf, focusing on the positive. "We're looking forward to working with the Facebook team."

Of course, it remains to be seen whether users will still gravitate to third-party services and apps like those provided by FourSquare and Yelp once they can do most of the same things without leaving their primary social networking app.

In summing up the announcement, Facebook VP of Product Chris Cox told a story of the future. He envisioned a time when a user will be sitting at a restaurant and their mobile device will begin to glow. The device will tell them which of their friends have eaten at this restaurant before, and what they ordered. It will share pictures of their friends visiting this place, and the good times they had there.

He envisioned a moment when a person visits San Francisco's Ocean Beach, and their mobile device begins to glow (apparently mobile devices of the future will do a lot of glowing), and it will tell them that this was the spot where their parents shared their first kiss. It will show them pictures of that kiss, and it will share the things their friends had to say about those pictures.