Why I want automated check ins

My wife says she trusts me. I know this because she tells me on a regular basis. She doesn't have to tell me, but it's nice to be told anyway.

However, when I asked her recently why she trusted me, I didn't get the response I expected. Instead she said "I know where you are all the time because you check in on Foursquare". After I got over the shock of her not having unmitigated faith in my activities, I began to realise what she actually meant.

You see she has now got used to seeing my digital waypoints appear at difference intervals throughout the day. Those automated announcements of my majorships appearing on Facebook are actually mini notifications that I'm out there somewhere and activity posting my whereabouts.  Or to put it another way... she has a certain amount of reassurance from knowing I'm voluntarily checking in on one of the most popular location - based online service.

However I can see a time where I'm going to stop using Foursquare.  I'm actually tiring of it a little and am not getting the rewards from using it I want. Why? Well the gamification seems to be getting poorer (for example I don't seem to get many badges for constantly visiting places) and I have such a geographical spread of friends that I'm getting notifications from as far afield as London, Sau Paulo and Somerset.

But if Foursquare automated their service, I would still keep using it. In fact, I'd turn it on, leave it on and have it poll my location on a regular basis. I'd still use it's user generated comments feature to find out useful stuff and still check to see who else is nearby. But importantly Mrs S would get more regular reassurances that I'm alive and on the go.

Or to put it more bluntly.... if I turned automatic notifications off, I could understand why she mighy trust a little less.

Social Local Mobile - innovation begins now

A recent study predicted that the value of online shopping through the web and mobile commerce will grow to £33.7 billion by 2015, representing an annual increase of 4.5 per cent.

Even Google have recently shown their aim to target mobile devices by the purchasing of Motorola Mobile and got social with the release of Google Plus (no, I don't use it either). They also have a pretty big hand in location-based online search and offers via the Android mobile operating system.

Sure.... 2010 was really the year of Social Media, 2011 is the year of mobile and location-based services such as Foursquare are stil growing in use. However, for me it is the combination of Social, Local and Mobile together that now forms a digital trinity of innovation, instant access and ease of use.

And I don't use the word innovation lightly, as I believe that this combination of technologies is where will see the next tide of Internet innovations come from. The next year or so are going to be really intersting and I'm looking forward to watching how back-room developers and start-ups take advantage of these and come up with fantastic concepts that leverage the always-on and socially-conncted online population.

Geotagging and location-based services, the businesses benefit

There's a great old TV announcement that says "Its 10pm and do you know where your children are?" [Wikipedia link] that was used as a Public Service Announcement in the USA from the 1950's. But these days, in the age of Foursquare and Gowalla applications, the question to companies should be "Its business hours and do you know where your customers are?"

A year on from their launch, the two location-based services are gaining significant numbers of users (me included) as people live their lives both in the physical world and the real-time web. This form of augmented reality means that people carry on their daily activities but 'check in' online to physical locations to tell their friends where the are and unlock badges or pins, or even virtual gifts in the case of Gowalla. Both also allow their users to provide hints and tips about that location (e.g. "the coffee here is really good" or "don't order a seat near the kitchen in the Summer", etc.). Foursquare (who I predict to win out in the end as the more popular service)also allows regular visitors to the same location to become 'The Mayor' of the establishment. With the majorship passing between the frequent users this creates a social-based competitive element to the application.


So that's how its used, what's the opportunity for business?


Well a major benefit of tapping into this application is the ability to get instant information on customer habits (e.g. which regulars are visiting and how often), as well as being able to get valuable feedback from the comments made.

This is also not just a thing popular with USA techies*, location-based services have now come to the UK where department store Debenhams and Dominos Pizza have recently joined up with Foursquare. Debenhams large store on London's Oxford Street now offers free coffee to anyone checking in there on a Friday and the ‘mayor' gets coffee all the time. Whilst Dominos now offers free weekly pizza to every 'major'.

*even though at the recent South-by-Southwest [SXSW] event in Austin USA, Foursquare worked with some companies to provide specialist badges & promotions for them.

In fact, Foursquare are now actively encouraging businesses to sign-up to provide a Foursquare "mayor specials" on their dedicated business page:
http://foursquare.com/businesses/

So although its early days, with usage still restricted to the early adopters, its likely that these services will grow in usage over the next year. Subseqent integration with Facebook, Twitter and other services (e.g. plancast.com where you say where you're going to be in the future) will only add to their quick adoption.