You’re walking down the street. You’re hungry. You see the golden arches of McDonalds. It’s far from healthy, but you’ve only got a five-dollar note in your pocket and you feel like a burger. Your phone vibrates. You get it out, and on the screen there is a picture message from Grill’d. They’re offering you a half price burger. The store is in front of you.

True location-based advertising was dreamed up a long time ago, and has seemed to take an eternity to become possible, but Facebook Deals may be the final frontier in making it a reality of daily life.

Facebook have announced that their location-based mobile platform, Facebook Places, will partner with major coupon companies like Groupon (Spreets and Scoopon are popular Australia spin-offs) as well as major brands, like McDonald’s and H&M, to offer location sensitive promotions and deals.

This week, always-newsworthy American retailer Gap will give out 10,000 pairs of jeans in the US to Facebook users through Deals.

Local merchants will be able to get involved and offer deals as well. 

Facebook Deals will start rolling out in the US this week as a feature of Facebook’s ‘Places’ mobile platform, first on Android phones, then iPhones.

Is this the nail in the coffin for Foursquare? Certainly in Australia, where a Foursquare Australia Google search still returns evangelical christian websites, the signs of future uptake cannot be good.