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

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

I’m at TechCrunch Disrupt the next couple days. I was able to bundle the event with some other meetings in New York, so it worked out well.

Summary so far: the next wave of innovation is about social, mobile & building relationships through engagement across channels – something that we, at Barkley, are attacking head on (and why I’m here at the event).

There are representatives from the majority of technology related companies, including Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Foursquare, Blippy – you name it, they’re probably here.

I’m not sure of the exact number of attendees, but it’s standing room only. There’s a huge venture capital presence, in addition to startups, press, technologists & executives from around the world.

Will the next Facebook be funded at the event? I haven’t had a chance to walk through Startup Alley, but I think there’s some good potential here to get some ideas off the ground.

More than 1,000 innovators from Silicon Valley, Silicon Alley and abroad convene in New York City to gain market insight and develop new business at Disrupt.

Executives from high-tech and media sectors attend Disrupt to stay abreast of the latest thinking, network in a unique atmosphere of concentrated innovators, and develop new business ideas.

Technologists attend to see what the competition is up to, hear from leaders in the field, and team up with other geeks to go all-out developing during Hack Day or create something new at the Builder Bar.

Startups attend to gain exposure leading venture and angel funders from both coasts and bring their product to market. Our early-stage-only Startup Alley offers your team entrance to the event for less than the cost of two tickets, and it’s front and center in our floorplan. All because we want Disrupt to support your innovation. If you’re already a big fish, look into exhibiting with us — and join sponsors such as Google and Zoosk.

Investors attend to see upcoming trends and products before the competition does and develop new business.

Press, bloggers and policy influencers attend Disrupt to gain crucial insight into market developments. This can’t-miss event will pull back the curtain from typical tech-conference platitudes for real content –and real relationships.

Sponsors ally with us to make an amazing event, integrating their services and gaining access to the creative crowd packed with early adopters and active investors, as well as developing small business, tech titans, and everything in between.

Disrupt is for the disruptors — And everyone else who doesn’t have time to lament broken business models. There’s too much new business to get done.

As someone that works on mobile and emerging technology projects, I had to pick up one of the latest hyped up Apple products and spend some time getting to know it and write my own review.

For those that aren’t familiar with the Apple iPad, it’s the latest shiny object from Apple. You can read all of the details about the Apple iPad online.

The short answer to the question about the Apple iPad being worth the hype? Not right now, but I think it will be in the next 12 months as new applications are developed and new features added.

Everyone seems to love it, although most can’t really explain why. Game changing? I don’t know of any product that’s game changing with the 1st generation launch, but it sets the stage for the 2nd generation, which I think will have a much bigger impact.

There are some interesting entertainment uses of the iPad, like the Yahoo Entertainment app on the iPad, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, NPR, etc.

For me, the iPad doesn’t do anything well enough to replace one of my existing devices. I already have an iPhone, iPod, Apple TV & MacBook Pro. I could see using the device in addition to my iPhone and MacBook Pro, but not replacing either one. Why? Multitasking for one, which the iPad and iPhone don’t allow (currently). And it doesn’t have all of the programs that I need, like Microsoft Office and others. HTML 5 may decrease the reliance on Flash, but no Flash support is a downer. The battery life, which at 10+hours is impressive considering the size of the screen and a big bonus in my book.

I don’t really need another device hanging around when my MacBook Pro already has great multimedia capabilities, including USB ports with built-in video capabilities. Other items missing include drag & drop file management, HD support (no HDMI out, 1080p playback or native widescreen support) and no full GPS support (via).

The best article was So, When Do You Plan To Use the iPad? which I think highlights my point.

It’s going to be very hard to find enough time to use the iPad. When you’re at home or at work, you’re going to use your computer. When you’re on the go, you have your smartphone. If you’re on a train or a plane and need to do some work, you can use a laptop. When you’re doing something else, such as running, well, then your attention is focused on that. When, exactly, are you going to use the iPad?

Yes, you may want it, but do you need it? If Apple wants to turn that want into need, it needs to sell content, not the device, because we don’t have the time for another device.

According to a few sources such as PC Magazine, Hulu, which is where I watch most of my regular TV programming, will be rolling out an iPad app in the next few months. If I could stream content to the iPad from my DVR, that could be huge. If I could download content to the device to watch TV programming on the go, that would be even better, even with embedded commercials.

The ABC Player is nice and a good start. According to Mashable (10 Great Sites for Watching Video on Your iPad), there are already a lot of sites that will support the device, including YouTube, Netflix, Vimeo, NBC, CBS and others.

Google is rumored to be building a tablet like device, as well as many others. Everyone is watching to see if Apple can make it as successful as the iPod & iPhone.

If you have an iPad, I’d like to hear how you plan to use it and if you feel it’s a game changer.

A few other articles of interest:

• comScore Releases Results of Study on Apple iPad and E-Reader Consumer Attitudes, Behaviors and Purchase Intent
• 10 Reasons to Wait for the Apple iPad 3G
• Apple iPad Review: Laptop Killer? Pretty Close

Technorati Tags: mobile, iPad, Apple

I’ve been trying to make it to South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) for several years, but the planets just never aligned.. That is, until this year.

SXSW, for those unfamiliar with the event, is held each Spring in Austin, TX and includes Interactive, Film & Music sessions spread across 1 1/2 weeks. I attended the Interactive sessions, which ran for five days, Friday-Tuesday, March 12th-16th and is referred to by some as “Spring Break for Nerds.”

I’ve been following the event for several years, so I somewhat knew what to expect going into it. According to several sources, interactive registration was up 40% over 2009, to somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000 total. I’m not sure what the final count was, but there will need to be some changes next year to accommodate the growth.

There have been several great summary posts, which I’ll include below. Overall, at least for me, it was a very successful use of time and resources.

Attending events isn’t cheap, but there’s something to be said about attending events in person and meeting people in real life. It just isn’t the same to watch the videos, monitor Twitter and blog content. You have to be there in person to really experience the event.

Steve Hall had a few great points that summarize my perspective (see his article below on Adrants):

• “But where else can you physically hang with so many people in the marketing/interactive/advertising/social/geek space all at once.”
• “SXSW is about the people. Sure, panels and content are important but it’s the people you want to connect with. It’s people you will do business with. It’s people who will become part of your professional (and personal) life.”

Highlights for me:

• Attending Gary Vaynerchuk’s keynote (the guy has passion!)
• Experiencing the hype around geo-location checkin services – everyone was checking in using Foursquare, Gowalla, etc. The panels such as Time+ Social + Location: What’s Next in Mobile Experiences were packed.
• Overemphasis around all that’s cool about iPhones, even though I don’t think they’ll rise above 15% market share
• The lameness of several of the keynotes and sessions (crowdsourcing doesn’t always work)
• Validation of the large opportunities in mobile, social and location-based services
• Pleasantly surprised that the AT&T network held up under the network strain and the WiFi at the event was great, which helped make up for the horrible internet service at my hotel
• Meet and greet in real life at Allhat II, a meetup organized by David Armano & Richard Binhammer
• Hearing both sides discussing the Yelp effect
• Having a Twitter hashtag, such as #contentrelevanttome for each panel or event was very helpful for tracking discussions via Twitter
• The brainpower on stage for “Making Content Relevant to Me, Here and Now” and several other sessions was mind-blowing
• Good discussions around the future of context, information overload and the difference between information and being informed
• Learned about some cool new location apps like at Seek ‘n Spell and scvngr, a geo-gaming platform at “Playing with Place: Location-Based Games and Services”
• While I don’t always agree with Jason Fried from 37signals, I’m glad I was able to catch part of his session and learn a bit about his new book, REWORK.
• Many people have seen the Socialnomics videos from Erik Qualman, but it was good to hear him speak and I’m looking forward to an updated round of stats on social media

photo via David Alston from #Allhat2 Tweetup

Other great SXSWi 2010 posts: 13 Observations From South by Southwest (SXSW) via Jay Baer The Joy of SXSW via BBH Labs SXSW – FAILS and WINS via Mark Logan Did SXSW Really Suck This Year? via Adrants Why SXSW Sucks via Jolie O’Dell SXSW 2010 – It’s time to leave the echo chamber via Uwe Hook The Social Technologies Powering SXSW 2010 via David Berkowitz What SXSW Taught Me About Social Systems, and Business via David Armano Digitally, Location Is Where It’s At via New York Times My ten favorite videos from SXSW via David Spark Presentations and documents tagged “sxsw2010” on Slideshare

Technorati Tags: SXSW, Interactive, technology, advertising

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

The smart phone revolution has changed how American views wireless communications. Now more than just a phone, cellular devices have determined how we search for information, how we store information, and how we are entertained.

We’ll 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.

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