Okay Geek Farm
The Future of Location Services - Materialistic or Social?
Connor Scalleat
Foursquare is the most dominate location based social network followed by Gowolla, Brightkite, and others. Behind these social networks is a location based infrastructure updating where you are and sharing it with your friends. Personally I am attracted to Foursquare due to it’s game-like facade and cleasy (clean and easy) user interface. The pretty colors, textures, and icons were not enough to sell me for Gowalla, and Brightkite just doesn’t have enough users.
The real question that I am trying to pose here is how are people using these services? It seems that people are using Foursquare to become the mayor of everything with automatic check-ins and a very high rate of misusage on the network you must ask the question what are they getting out of this? The pitch of a location based social network seems scary to some and genius to others. If your unaware I imagine the pitch something like “with a location based social network we can create the most dynamic, interactive, and useful experience. People will be able to share their location with their friends leave tips and reviews behind all at the same time of enjoying the game-like atmosphere and allowing great interaction to customers and businesses.”
On the other hand, some people are freaked out by others knowing their location at every second, but let’s face it, it’s the future. Whether its the immediate future or the distant, these services will dominate and their longevity of domination will all be riding on the one question, “how are people using this service?” To obtain the most points and to be the most interactive business? Maybe it’s to be the best user and play fair with all your check-ins and rewards. I look forward to seeing the answer to this question and I really want to here what you have to say, post a comment below and tell us what you think.
