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A record number of new users signed up for Foursquare today, company co-founder Dennis Crowley wrote in a tweet tonight.

That likely means upwards of 18,000 people signed up for the location-based social network, probably buoyed by a glowing article in today's New York Times and the press generated from yesterday's announcement of Facebook Places. All eyes are on Foursquare and other services like it in the wake of yesterday's announcement of Facebook Places, which lets users add a location element to their status updates. Will startups like Foursquare survive?

(Or So Says Former Places Engineer) What Will Become of Foursquare, Gowalla & Others?

There's a very interesting question over on Q&A site Quora.com regarding last night's announcement of Facebook's geo-location effort, Facebook Places. Someone asked the question: "Are Foursquare and Gowalla going to survive now that Facebook Places has launched?"

This question was on the forefront of our minds, too, as we watched the somewhat-reluctant partners trotted out in support of Places during Facebook's press briefing last night. While some (Yelp, Booyah) appeared excited about the ability to integrate with Facebook's new service, others - most notably Foursquare, the startup whose geo-location service has been the media darling as of late - seemed a little unsure of themselves.

Facebook Places, the new location check-in feature that will begin rolling out to users across the U.S. today, was introduced last night. To our surprise, the new feature was set to "friends only" by default, but two words came up that we recall from the last time the company had a big product release: "opt out".

Here's how to opt out.

Earlier tonight, we sent Facebook some questions probing for more details about user experience on Facebook Places that weren't covered in the presentation tonight.

Facebook's presentation about Places focused on the user experience and how adding a location element to social networking will make the experience richer and more useful. The company also gave a shoutout to developers, announcing an Application Programming Interface and bringing developers of other location services on stage to cheer Facebook on. But it glossed over some of the grittier logistics.

Facebook is integrating location data so that users can write location-specific updates, the company announced today. The new feature, Facebook Places, is already being rolled out in waves to users in the United States with international support to come, and an interface so that developers can start using location data in third-party applications is coming tomorrow.

Facebook may be moving fast, but Zuckerberg and co. are being careful to ease their 500 million users in - making nice with location pioneers Gowalla and Foursquare; emphasizing user benefits, not marketing possibilities; and sharing gooey anecdotes about how Facebook Places creates a living history of the world.

Facebook is expected to make a long-awaited announcement this afternoon about how it will be integrating real-time location data. We'll be live-blogging the specifics of the new features and touch on the meaning for other location-based social sharing services like Foursquare and initial reactions from pundits and the typical Facebook user.

The announcement is expected to come around 5 p.m. Pacific time. Read on for the highlights. You can also watch the announcement live.

Facebook is expected to announce today the new location-based features that it has been working on for months.

It's speculated that Facebook will make it possible for users to add a location to their updates and possibly virtually "check in" to places such as restaurants, stores and even events.