Starting from next month, Facebook going to start offering its users not only what their friends are doing, but also where they’re doing it.

The popular online social network will announce this “location-based” feature at its upcoming conference, called f8. The conference takes place April 21-22 in San Francisco (source:The New York Times’ Bits Blog)

According to the post, users can be able to add their locations to status updates on Facebook. Adding location tools to Facebook has some serious privacy implications, which is most likely why so far Facebook have avoided anything to do with location. That said, and as the NYT rightly picked, a change in the Facebook terms of use late last year confirmed whatever service the company does provide, it will be entirely opt-in, and will be treated ‘like any other content you post to Facebook”.

The recent launch of the website “Please Rob Me,” displaying user’s publicly available location data to the entire world in an effort to demonstrate just how vulnerable sharing where you are can leave you will also likely be taken into careful consideration by Facebook. Sources close to the NYT have also suggested that the company isn’t looking to compete with location-based startups such as Foursquare or Gowalla, instead the focus is providing location-based advertising to compete with companies like Google and its large user base of small business advertisers.