Location Is The Missing Link Between Social Networks And The Rea. Imagine a world where you sit at your computer and you never go outside. Where you never see another human being. This is the world that sites like Google and Facebook want you to live in. Though they’d never admit to such a thing, the reasoning should be obvious: The longer you’re at your computer, the more time you’re spending on their sites.
The more time your spending on their sites, the more ads you’re being served. Thankfully, we don’t quite live in that world yet. Social networking has been perhaps the most popular trend on the Internet over the past several years. Ever since the term was born, countless people have debated the implications of taking social interactions virtual. If you’ll allow me to be embarrassingly obvious for a second: Sitting in a chat room all day, even if all of your friends are in it as well, is not the same as being in the same physical room with them.
That’s where location comes in. Social networking up until this point has been great. Gowalla. Foursquare. Free Beer! Foursquare Starts Alerting Users Of Nearby Mayor Deal. Last month, we wrote about Foursquare’s potential from a business perspective thanks to its location data. This week, the service has started actively tapping that potential by alerting users when locations close to them are offering special deals. As you can see in the image, a large blue alert now appears at the bottom of check-in pages on Foursquare’s iPhone app to let you know if there is a deal at a place close to the place where you currently are. With the headline “mayor offer nearby”, these deals reward mayors of particular places. Users can become the “mayor” of a location on Foursquare by checking in at a place more than any other user over a 60 day period. For businesses, that’s obviously something that would be good to reward.
And something like a free beer seems like a very small price to pay for getting people excited about coming to your place more often. And Crowley sounds excited about the new Twitter geolocation API announced today. Foursquare gets past the man power problem by crowdsourcing its. What do startups strapped for cash — and time — do when they want to expand their brand into new places? In the case of Foursquare, they're letting their users do it for them.
The location-based messaging service, begun by Naveen Selvadurai and Dennis Crowley in New York City, has been getting a lot of positive press lately. (I've written previously about the company here.) But keeping up with all of that attention is a different story. While many online companies can easily push their web presence globally, Foursquare is currently only available in 22 cities. The technology is capable of working anywhere, but making it useful takes work on the ground. And in Vancouver, users are willing to put in those hours themselves. Foursquare works by letting users "check-in" to different locations in a city and broadcasting that info to their approved friends on the service. Crowley and Selvadurai have made their product incredibly popular by turning socializing into a game. Image: 6S. Foursquare. Foursquare Beats Twitter to Local Advertising Goldmine. Foursquare is the mobile social game that you play by checking in at various locales while out and about.
The location-based application has managed to strip the fat out of other location-aware mobile ideas, find just the right formula for encouraging check-ins, and hit at the right time. Now, they're sitting pretty with funding and a trajectory that resembles Twitter's rise to glory. Foursquare, however, isn't wasting any time on monetizing and has just beat Twitter to the business services market.
Today marks the launch of their beta advertising platform — Foursquare for Businesses — designed to provide retailers with an opportunity to highlight specials to Foursquare users who check-in nearby and get data based on the location-based campaigns. Foursquare for Businesses is a natural extension of the product that we knew was coming. It's absolutely genius and here's why.
How to Hype Your Tiny Social Network in the New York Times - Fou. Geo. Danger-baby-the-other-side of Geoloco. Social Media on a Sunday Afternoon: Only in the. « A Shepherd's Journey | Main | Linchpins are Everywhere: Dive for Cover!! » June 14, 2010 Social Media on a Sunday Afternoon: Only in the Bay Area Yesterday afternoon, I was having a smoothie with a friend from out of town near San Francisco's Delores Park. He is a technology entrepreneur who had an exit a few months ago and is now exploring ideas for his next gig. He said to me as I was checking into Foursquare: "I use it, I like it, I get it, but I use it as more of a social experiment.
He sees the real value which he feels is still untapped, is giving people a more targeted and relevant way to meet up with people you don't know, whether its for dating or new friendships. While I don't entirely agree with my pal, the real value to me is when I'm at an event. For the most part, I don't find Foursquare as useful in my own city as I do when I'm traveling and often discover a friend is in town the same time I am, and in fact may be a few blocks away. Curiosity set in so off we went.