So here’s the summary: In my opinion, Facebook Places is the AOL of location-based services. I’m a big fan of Foursquare and they aren’t going anywhere, for now at least. They don’t have the scale (yet), but they have the cool factor and brands on board.

Let me explain a bit more.

Facebook has a huge number of users. Over 500 million, currently. But, Facebook Places is limited to an iPhone app and a mobile website that somewhat works on newer smartphones like the Andorid platform (although it’s pretty clunky, from what my Android friends have said). While everyone is touting the 500 million user level, it’s actually quite smaller than that when it comes to Facebook Places users. So, when it comes to location, they have some of the same challenges as other services until smarthphones take the majority.

Everyone keeps telling me that because Facebook has so many users, they will for sure dominate location-based services (see visual below from jess3), but I disagree. Everyone knew it was only a matter of time before Facebook launched a location-based check-in program. I’m sure Twitter will do the same in the near future.

Brands will inevitably get on board and claim their locations in mass and Facebook will start to monetize all the data they are collecting. I’m just surprised they didn’t launch with more strategic partners like they did with the Facebook social plugins.

But for now, there just aren’t many reasons to use Facebook Places.

Meanwhile, companies like Whrrl are announcing significant rewards for sharing check-ins. Click here to read about their latest Vegas campaign.

Foursquare was part of the Facebook Places launch, along with several other location-based companies, which was a bit awkward for everyone.

In an interview with The Telegraph, Crowley says: “I have now had a chance to play around with Facebook Places and it’s not that great or interesting. It’s a pretty boring service, with barely any incentives for users to keep coming back and telling their friends where they are.” To boot, “The only interesting thing about Places is that it has a potential audience of over 500 million people around the world… but that can only be a good thing for location-based services, like Foursquare, as Facebook will educate the masses about check-ins,” Crowley adds. Crowley believes that Foursquare’s gaming mechanics will keep people far more enticed into using his service over the likes of Places. “I always knew Facebook would launch a check-in tool,” he tells The Telegraph. “I knew that on the day we started creating Foursquare. But I also knew that people needed incentives to keep checking-in and sharing their location. Facebook could copy our games ideas, but we are working on a raft of new mechanics which we hope will keep Foursquare fresh and ‘check-in fatigue’ away.” source

Compared to other location-based services like Yelp, claiming a location on Facebook is downright painful (see below). Who’s going to upload their articles of incorporation? And how will Facebook store this data? I understand that Facebook wants to verify that someone has the ability to claim the location. But they don’t do that with Facebook pages or URL’s, which I can pretty much say that I’m anyone and wait for a major brand to complain, in the meanwhile, creating consumer confusion.

The poll below was from Mashable: Location Faceoff: Facebook Places vs. Foursquare. The results would lead me to believe that the influencers on the cutting edge are sticking with Foursquare. At some point, when a technology or service reaches mainstream, it loses the cool factor for emerging technologist. If everyone is using it, it isn’t emerging anymore. That doesn’t mean that consumers and businesses are using it correctly, just that the usage has grown.

The feature to allow other users to check you in on your behalf, in my mind, is just a bad idea all around and has huge privacy implications. Sure, you can create customized lists of individuals you would like to share your location with (see video) but most people won’t go to the trouble and just share check-ins with everyone.

Facebook newsfeeds are being clogged up with meaningless Facebook Places check-ins. I’ve heard a variety of different stats in regards to percentages of Foursquare checkins that are also posted to Facebook & Twitter. Some people have their Twitter accounts automatically post to Facebook, so that number may be larger. I’ve heard that around 20% of people share their Foursquare check-ins to Facebook. The results tend to be higher at locations that have a positive cool factor like Starbucks vs. a random gas station.

I’ll occasionally share check-ins, but usually only when I have a comment to add in addition to the check-in – more than just “I’m here.” Foursquare suffered from this same problem when it started, but most users have figured out the balance so that they don’t drop a bunch of friends in the process of over-sharing every time they took a step.

Greg Sterling takes an interesting perspective in a post about the real target of Facebook Places

…if you want to argue that Facebook is going after anyone in particular, the same thing must equally be said about a range of companies that includes yellow pages publishers, newspapers, cityguides, local verticals and many others that offer local information online and/or sell ads to small businesses.

So, what do you think of Facebook Places? Little by little, several of my 2010 predictions are taking shape. While I’m not on board with Facebook Places at the moment, I’m sure they’ll make improvements over the next 6 months to make it a very solid product, including brand partnerships, multimedia integration and rewards programs. The launch is definitely good for the location-based services market as a whole and will help educate the masses. I think Facebook will start to compete more directly with Yelp & yellow page/directory services and turn their web search into a map based local search service, including recommendations from friends. In essence – competing directly with Google and others for world domination of the technology world.

Technorati Tags: Foursquare, Facebook

Last week I was fortunate to be invited to speak on a panel about the future of advertising and location-based services at MobileBeat 2010.

Location is a hot topic in the industry, with venture capital flowing into this area (Andreessen Horowitz Leads $20 Million Investment in Foursquare)

VentureBeat put together a good recap of each session: Here’s what happened at MobileBeat 2010 including my panel, Location and advertising: A new recipe for monetizing content?

Technorati Tags: mobile, Shopkick, Placecast, Twitter, location-based, mobile social networks

I’m excited to announce that I’ll be presenting along with some of the best minds in the industry about geolocation and the future of mobile advertising at MobileBeat 2010.

Overview:
The third annual MobileBeat conference is proud to introduce a new two-day format that offers expanded content and networking. Come join mobile industry leaders on July 12-13 at The Palace Hotel in San Francisco, as we explore the year of the superphone, who will profit from it, and how.

MobileBeat 2010 is all about who among these players will make money, how and why.

Monday, July 12
11:00am – 11:50am [Breakout Session] Where’s the Moolah in Mobile Content? As mobile ad networks mature, new geolocation technologies and mobile content offerings from big publishers present fresh monetization opportunities. What is the future of mobile advertising?

Panelists:

• Elad Gil, Twitter, Director of Geo
• Alistair Goodman, Placecast, CEO
• Dustin Jacobsen, Barkley, VP of Social Media & Technology
• Dinesh Moorjani, IAC, SVP of Mobile
• Cyriac Roedinger, Shopkick, Co-Founder & CEO

Moderator: JP Manninen, VentureBeat

Technorati Tags: mobile, Shopkick, Placecast, Twitter, location-based, mobile social networks

There’s been several great articles recently on location-based marketing that I’d like to share.

The first is a blog post from Soical Fresh: 21 Unique Location Examples from Foursquare, Gowalla, Whrrl and MyTown

In the article above are some great examples of how brands, large and small, are utilizing the various location-based services out there. While not fully exhaustive, as new campaigns are launching all the time, I think it provides the best compilation of projects to date.

There are a few other projects I’d add to the list, including the Tasti D-Lite loyalty program, Red Bull (Whrrl) and Intercontinental Hotel Group that integrated Gowalla into their loyalty program.

There are some companies that didn’t make the list either that I’d add, like Loopt Star and Brightkite.

There are plenty of active projects by all location-based companies, and in some cases, you’d be better off working with a smaller player to have more influence over the end product. Keep in mind that several of the companies are growing so fast that they’ve had some growing pains along the way, including downtime, but don’t let that turn you away.

Yelp is another organization that I think needs more attention. They’ve got the scale, both on mobile devices and the web that puts them towards the top of the list for restaurants and retail, at least.

• 32 million unique website visitors in May 2010 (top 100 website)
• 1.4 million unique iPhone users
• 27% of all Yelp searches come from the iPhone app
• 500,000 phone calls
• 1 million point-to-point directions

Pepsi, which ran one of the first branded campaigns on Foursquare and the exclusive non-alcoholic beverage partner, has launched their own location-based checkin service called Pepsi Loot, which allows users to find locations where Pepsi can be purchased and rewarding users for checking in.

Launching a private location-based network is not a small undertaking, but for Pepsi, I can see it as a viable project, especially considering the value of the consumer data they will collect.

One thing I’ll point out is that there has been low recall (but high response) for location-based services (eMarketer), but it’s still an emerging area, so I think that will evolve with time.

There was also an article from eMarketer (Privacy Concerns Fail to Slow Social Activity) that shows while privacy is still a concern, it hasn’t slowed down users from being active in social media.

There are rumors of a significant venture capital investment in Foursquare (with a $100 million valuation by some), but there have also been rumors about buyouts as well.

Mashable had another great article with tips on location-based marketing:

• learn the platforms
• determine goals
• establish your presence
• customize & implement compelling promotions
• engage, track & adapt

Lastly, there was a great article from ReadWriteWeb Why We Check In: The Reasons People Use Location-Based Social Networks – another must read for those trying to understand location-based marketing.

They grouped the venues into food, travel, parks, education & nightlife.

The reasons for checkins were serendipity & connection, to win some kind of prize or reward (mayorship, sweepstakes, etc) and for maintaining a personal history (a “lazy diary”).

I’m excited about where this space is headed – so claim your venue, check in and start learning and sharing with your peers.

Technorati Tags: mobile, Foursquare, Gowalla, location-based, mobile social networks

An introduction to mobile development and the landscape was presented by Mike Craig from Ruxter Mobile.

Barbara Ballard, from Little Springs Design, spoke about discoverablily of mobile apps & web sites as well as designing for a mobile devices.

The last presentation was by me (Dustin Jacobsen, the Director of Social Media & Technology at Barkley) and focused on mobile social networking and sites such as Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp & others.

All three presentations have been uploaded by the speakers and are available below.

Updated 7/23: Videos now available.

The first two presentations were given by Mike Craig from Ruxter Mobile and Barbara Ballard, from Little Springs Design: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/7832804

The third presentation was given by Dustin Jacobsen, the Director of Social Media & Technology at Barkley: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/7834234

Thanks to @duckmanvideo for streaming and making the videos available.

Technorati Tags: mobile, Social Media Club, Kansas City, Foursquare, Yelp, social

We live our lives in public – at least online. With every move made online indexed and aggregated into individual customer profiles, there is nowhere to hide on the World Wide Web.

Google indexes everything, collecting information from our computers, mobile devices, e-mail and now even through television. Google searches still account for the majority of Google revenue, but that will change over time.

Although commonly known as a leading collector of personal data, Facebook trails behind Google with approximately 25 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) posted on the site each month.

With so much information floating in cyberspace, there are even emerging services that aggregate information specifically from social media platforms like Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Pandora and LinkedIn. Collecting the personal information of others has become a business, making everything you put on the web public domain.

Today, Steve Kraske sits down with “Tech-sperts” Dustin Jacobsen, director of Social Media and Technology at Barkley, and Justin Parlette, support systems administrator at University of Missouri – Kansas City. We’ll review the issue of online privacy.

Jacobsen and Parlette will also discuss the latest technology gadgets and trends, including Google TV, the Sprint HTC EVO, the soundproof stadium built for the World Cup and more.

A few highlights:

• What information exists online? What information is shared and why?
• Is all information online public? If it’s online, it’s public.
• It’s not just information we share, but information others share about us
• The power of aggregations – Netflix and Facebook mashups
• Balancing privacy and costs – ad-based social networks
• Employers are looking at your public information
• Public is the new private – Zuckerberg, Facebook
• Where do we draw the line with information we share?
• Where do people find the time? It’s a shift of communication methods – the new water cooler
• The growth of mobile has enabled engagement on the go
• Google TV sounds interesting, but we won’t learn much more until it’s released this fall
• Will Facebook, Hulu & others offer paid versions that are ad-free?
• Facebook & others offer several advertising options, including the ability to target by demographics
• iPhone 4 vs. Sprint HTC EVO – do we need 4G?
• Battery life for mobile devices still needs to improve

Download the full audio from the broadcast

One of the articles that I wanted to call out was that with all of the complaints about Facebook, they continue to grow: Privacy, Schmivacy: Facebook Is Attracting Near-Record Numbers Of New Visitors

Reclaim Privacy was a site that was referenced by Justin that can help you understand privacy settings and concerns.

If you haven’t already, be sure to follow KCUR Up to Date on Twitter and check out the KCUR site for a list of upcoming shows and links to subscribe to the podcast.

Technorati Tags: mobile, KCUR, Google TV, iPhone, Facebook, privacy

Monday, April 12th, 2010

They review Apple’s newest gadget, the iPad, cover news of iPhone 4.0 OS multitasking capabilities, and location-aware apps.

A few highlights:

• iPad: trying to find a place to live (3 min)
• People believe in Steve Jobs & the magic he brings to Apple products (5 min)
• Closed platforms: good or bad (10 min)
• Basic computer usage with instant internet access (12 min)
• Apple won’t allow Flash on the iPhone, iPad (17 min)
• HTML 5 (20 min)
• iPad apps: more than just eBooks, but interactive ebooks are great (24 min)
• An iPad isn’t a phone replacement (28 min)
• Google Android & other tablet computers (34 min)
• iPhone 4.0 (38 min)
• Location-aware apps (40 min)
• Even people that bought an iPad aren’t sure how they’ll use it (43 min)
• 20 years from now (48 min)

Listen & download

If you haven’t already, be sure to follow KCUR Up to Date on Twitter and check out the KCUR site for a list of upcoming shows and links to subscribe to the podcast.

I had a few people comment back to me after the show that the iPad does have GPS (I said it doesn’t on the show). To clarify, the model I have (Wi-Fi only) does not a built-in GPS chip.

Apple’s New $499 – $829 iPad: GPS, Map, Navigation Features
Apple states: “iPad with Wi-Fi finds your location using known Wi-Fi hotspots, and Wi-Fi + 3G models use Wi-Fi, GPS, and cellular towers.”

Apple iPad: Does it have ‘real’ GPS? (updated: yes and no)

I also had a lot of interesting comments about Flash on Apple devices (Apple will not allow Adobe’s Flash on the iPhone or iPad). Apple wants to be able to change the OS without breaking Flash apps. It’s a lot more complicated than that, but that is the stance that Apple is taking. And banning Flash isn’t going to slow Apple down. One comment I got was: “Absence of Flash isn’t keeping anyone away with content that people want.”

Technorati Tags: mobile, KCUR, iPad, iPhone, Up to Date

There’s a huge list of companies in this space right now, but I thought I’d call out updates of three from the last three days: MyTown, Foursquare and Placecast.

MyTown Hits 1.5 Million Location-Based Gamers; Ups The Social With Version 3.0
“…users on MyTown are averaging around 70 minutes of playtime a day, we’re told. Equally impressive: MyTown is opened 850,000 times a day. “

About Booyah:
Booyah, headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif., is dedicated to creating new forms of entertainment to the masses by bringing together elements of the real world and the digital world. The entire development team draws its creativity not only from highly respected studios, including Blizzard Entertainment, Activision, EA, and Insomniac Games, but also from a vast array of industries, such as Semi-Conductor, Consumer Web, and the Social Gaming space. The Company is financed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’ iFund.

Four VC Firms Battle For Foursquare, Valuation Goes Stratospheric

About foursquare:
foursquare is a cross between a friend-finder, a social city-guide and a game that rewards you for doing interesting things. We aim to build things to not only help you keep up with the places your friends go, but that encourage you to discover new places and challenge you to explore your neighborhood in new ways.

Placecast Raises $3 Million For Location-Based Mobile Marketing Technology

About Placecast:
Placecast is a location-based digital advertising service from 1020 Inc.. Placecast provides an opt-in advertising service via mobile devices designed to drive customers to specific physical spaces. Users input lists of their interests (bars, restaurants, types of shops) and receive direct-mail-type text messages from places of interest around them. 1020 was founded in 2005 and is based in San Francisco and New York. The company is funded by Voyager Capital and Onset Ventures.

Technorati Tags: mobile, MyTown, Foursquare, Placecast, location-based

On Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010, Alistair Goodman, CEO, 1020 Placecast & I are presenting a Master Class at the iMedia Breakthrough Summit.

Our session is called Connecting the Web to the Physical World: The Promise of Location-based Marketing and I included a summary of the session below. If you’re going, it would be great to connect. Not going? I’m interested in hearing your thoughts and will report back next week after the event.

The explosive growth in connected devices, GPS-enabled mobile phones, e-books, location aware browsers, apps that use location, augmented reality, and a wave of acquisitions in mobile are some of the many indicators that location is driving the next wave of innovation in digital marketing. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Nokia, RIM, Vodafone, and a new generation of technology and media firms specializing in location are creating the tools and platforms to deliver and consume content and advertising based on location across any device. The gap between the digital and physical worlds is quickly disappearing.

New opportunities are emerging to use location-aware marketing to drive consumers to physical experiences. For marketers, this means developing a new breed of marketing strategies, generating more efficient customer communication tools, and developing next-generation measurement models. This session is designed to showcase some of the emerging location-based technologies with real case studies, and offer early insights into the potential for marketers. Topics that will be addressed include key concepts and trends, different location-based technologies, an overview of companies working in the space and their offerings, new analytics, and how to “sell-in” location-based programs.

Technorati Tags: mobile, event, iMedia, Breakthrough, Summit, Placecast, location-based, marketing

Since many people have asked, I thought I’d post a link to the summary & audio files from the Thursday March 11, 2010 show on KCUR Up to Date with Steve Kraske: Smart Phone Revolution. I had a great time and look forward to upcoming technology shows.

Steve Kraske sits down with Dustin Jacobsen, Director of Social Media and Technology at Barkley and Justin Parlette, Support System Administrator at the University of Missouri-Kansas City to examine smart phone applications.

We look at who makes apps… why we choose a certain phone based on their apps… and how the apps we see as games retailers see as dollar signs.

A few highlights:

• Mobile stats: What devices are popular (4 min)
• App usage: Favorite apps & usage (8 min)
• Where we’re headed: Mobile social networking, navigation, augmented reality (11 min)
• Mobile & retail: How purchases are influenced in store (14 min)
• Plethora of apps available (18 min)
• Texting & driving: There isn’t an app for personal responsibility (21 min)
• Cat translator / cat speak (there’s an app for that) (26 min)
• Health care apps (30 min)
• Disney World apps (34 min)

Listen / download here

If you haven’t already, be sure to follow KCUR Up to Date on Twitter and check out the KCUR site for a list of upcoming shows and links to subscribe to the podcast.

Technorati Tags: mobile, KCUR, Steve Kraske, Up to Date