After several months of small scale testing in New York City, Facebook Inc will finally be rolling out its Place Tips feature across the country, and it has started by offering free Facebook Bluetooth Beacons to retailers.

Place Tips is a Facebook mobile feature that allows users to see localized tips and newsfeeds in and around nearby stores, restaurants, and other businesses. The feature lets users see pictures and status updates from friends who have visited that location before, as well as other relevant information such as posts from the location’s Facebook page and more.

Facebook uses its own bluetooth beacons with Place Tips, the first few of which were installed in January at popular locations in New York City such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dominique Ansel Bakery, Strand Book Store, the burger joint at Le Parker Meridien Hotel, Brooklyn Bowl, Pianos, the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop and Veselka.

“We want to be really confident if we’re going to show you something at the top of your News Feed,” Facebook product manager Mike LeBeau wrote at the time. “As we started building this, we realized we need more confidence to show you the right and relevant things.”

Free beacons for businesses

The experiment appears to have been a success, as Facebook is now letting businesses to apply for their own free beacons. “Facebook Bluetooth beacons are free for you to use and help people see more information about your business whenever they use Facebook during their visit,” Facebook said on a signup page for the beacons.

“The most reliable way for businesses to show Place Tips is with a Facebook Bluetooth beacon. These beacons use Bluetooth to send a signal to the Facebook app on your phone to help us show customers the right Place Tips at the right place. Your visitors will need to use the latest version of the Facebook iPhone app, turn on Bluetooth and be present at the business location where the beacon is located.”

Place Tips are optional, and users can turn them off on the mobile app by navigating to Settings > Location > Place Tips Settings.

If you are a business that would like to apply for a free Facebook Bluetooth Beacon, you can do so here.

Image credit: Facebook Inc