Where You At? – The Rise Of Location Aware Apps

One of the major trends that appear to be forming in 2010 is the location aware applications made popular in social games such as Foursquare, Gowalla, MyTown and Brightkite. Facebook is also getting ready to debut its location aware service at their annual f8 developer conference next month, Google Buzz which launched just over a month ago includes location awareness on the mobile side and Twitter introduced location aware features into its API November and has just today (March 12, 2010) announced that geolocaton is enabled when using the Twitter site. With many startups currently involved in the location aware market and the big social networking sites getting ready to launch their own location aware services it looks as if this market is ready to explode in 2010.

Who’s Driving All This Growth?

Even with this explosive growth in the location aware market the normal mobile user is still unaware that these types of services exist and if they are aware they don’t really care to use them and yet many others worry about their privacy. As usual it’s the bleeding edge technology enthusiasts and early adopters that are currently driving the growth that this market is seeing. Will Facebook and its 400+ million users be the company that brings location aware application to the masses and adoption by the “regular” user?

Is It A Game Or Something Else?

That would completely depend on which service you are using at that time. Gowalla, Foursquare and MyTown all have social gaming aspects baked into their systems while others like Twitter, Buzz and from what I understand Facebook only offer the ability to post your current location.

Privacy Concerns

In today’s social network driven society being a friend with someone no longer means the same thing that it did ten years ago. It used to be that a friend was someone you actually had personally met and exchanged information with, the term friend is now so loosely used that it can mean anything from an actual friend to some anonymous user who sent you a request and you accepted. It is clear that many of us have decided on minimal privacy and to further remove the privacy barrier many of the location aware apps give you the ability to send an automatic Facebook update or tweet letting all your friends or followers know where you are. Sending it to Facebook may not be the worst thing depending on what privacy controls you set up but by tweeting out your current location and unless you have a private account your location is now entirely public and searchable using the Twitter search.. As pointed out quite slyly by PleaseRobMe.com sharing your location with others in this type of social setting could be used to detect when you aren’t home and alert potential home invaders to an opportunity. As you can see the ability to let everyone know where you are at all times is a privacy concern that users need to be aware of.

Who Are The Major Players?

1. Foursquare –With apps for the iPhone, Android and Blackberry and a mobile site they make it hard not to be able to check in at your location. With features such as the ability to share your location experiences with friends, a gaming system centered around earning points and badges and the ability to become the mayor of a location potentially earning you free stuff it’s easy to see why Foursquare sits as the largest in the market with just over 500,000 users.
2. Gowalla – You could describe Gowalla as Foursquare’s arch nemesis and much like Foursquare it has apps for the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Palm as well as a mobile site. Gowalla lets users check in, earn passport stamps and collect virtual souvenirs.
3. Brightkite – Like the other location based sites previously mentioned they have apps for the iPhone, Android devices, Blackberry phones and a mobile site accessible by other phones. Brightkite is more of a location based social service than a game as it allows you to see where and what your friends are vs earning achievements and unlocking items.
4. Buzz – Google has seldom used location based service latitude for a while but really dove head first into location with their launch of Buzz this past month. Much like Brightkite, Buzz is more of a location based social network showing you where your friends are and showing your friends where your last check-in was. Since Buzz is tied to Gmail there are theoretically over 100 million users who can participate in the mobile version of Buzz.
5. Facebook – Facebook is a wildcard as it is not 100% known what their location based service will bring when launched in April. It does sound like Facebook will allow outside developers access to the location based information through their API so third parties will be able to develop location services using the data supplied by the Facebook users. With 400 million users whatever Facebook does it could propel location based services into the mainstream.

What Is The Social Media Impact?

The current crop of location aware apps barely make a dent when it comes to social media as their user base pales in comparison to those of Facebook and Twitter. But, things are about to change quickly once Facebook enters the market and as Twitter users begin to become more comfortable sharing their location amongst their followers. It’s only been within the last year or so that mainstream regular computer users and businesses have became comfortable enough using social networking sites to share content that it may be a while before we see the adoption of location based services amongst the mainstream communities.

Marketing Opportunities

Location aware based apps present an entirely new are of marketing and advertising opportunities that should be investigated and explored further by business. Gowalla and Foursquare are already partnering with established brands to provide location based product placement and recently Foursquare partnered with the movie Valentine’s Day to help their users find the most romantic places in their cities. The niche marketing opportunities that present themselves within Foursquare or Gowalla are near endless. A local bakery could offer a free treat to the mayor of the bakery or a rare passport stamp could be offered to the user who visits the most and by earning that passport stamp the visitor could get a discount on their purchase. This type of real world reward will keep users coming back to the business and they willl continue using the app. The creative possibilities within this market are near limitless.

Where Do They Go From Here?

Unless these services can gain mainstream market appeal they are destined to remain on the fringe in terms of user adoption. The market appears to have been legitimized with the addition of Google, Facebook and Twitter joining in. As always the case with social networks you go where your friends go and so it will be interesting to see which service mainstream users gravitate towards.

Please leave a comment below and let me know why or why not you use any of the location aware services and if you do which is your favorite.