Facebook Partners with OpenTable

Facebook announced a partnership with restaurant reservation website OpenTable that will allow visitors to make reservations directly from restaurants' mobile Facebook pages.

Facebook's announcement said, "The update represents a new way of discovering and booking great dining experiences, all within the Facebook mobile app.”

Overview

1. Facebook has begun the integration, which will allow Facebook users to make reservations for the 20,000 restaurants currently available on OpenTable within the native Facebook app, meaning diners won't need an OpenTable account to make reservations.
2. Reservations are easy. To book, users can visit a restaurant’s Page, and below its address and open hours, they will see a panel alerting “Reservations for two people available around 7:00pm”. Facebook automatically pre-fills the users’ information before pressing the “Reserve” button.
3. Reservations will not generate any posts in the News Feed, nor will users be able to share a reservation with friends.
4. In February, OpenTable released a Places I’ve Eaten Facebook app that gives consumers a way to list and rate the restaurants they’ve been and share it with their friends in their social network.

Key Takeaways:

1. These types of partnerships, which make business' Facebook pages more functional, could mean more dollars for the social networking site. Facebook is also working on adding current television listings on its mobile app.
2. By equipping the Pages with information and interactivity that help businesses, Facebook could also encourage them to advertise for their Pages.
3. Facebook integration is another sign of the growing importance of local commerce — everyone from Google to Yelp to Groupon wants a slice of it.