The state of location-based social networking (LBSN) has been a topic I've been chewing on and spitting out a lot lately thanks to some recent reading like this and this, as well as some Twitter insight like this and this. Wednesday's announcement of Facebook Places, surely the worst kept secret in this arena, just threw even more gasoline on the fire and got my mind running a million miles a second on the topic.
The recent ascent of Foursquare seems to have created a perception that LBSN is somehow new, sometimes even among people who should probably know better. With services like Brightkite, Gowalla, and Loopt having been in existence for a number of years before Foursquare, LBSN is of course hardly new. Somehow I'd like to think that after a few years of existence, LBSN can give us something more than tweets announcing that someone has just become the mayor of Bunghole Liquors, or being reduced to yet another way to bombard users with marketing messages. I agree with those who expressed in the tweets linked above that LBSN being very much tied to a check-in model is probably detrimental to it in the long run.
I may be a Foursquare and Brightkite user, but I'm to the point where I want LBSN to be more meaty and substantial. Badges, pins, and mayorships have run their course and check-in fatigue often sets in for me. Questioning why I'm checking in at a particular venue often crosses my mind. Is sharing that I'm at Kroger because I need to grab some bread and milk really that compelling and valuable to those following me? It's highly doubtful. I know that I'm not alone in feeling this kind of ambivalence toward LBSN.
I've been trying to think of other applications of LBSN, but I'm coming up a bit empty on ideas. Maybe it's me, maybe it's something inherent to the check-in model - I don't know. What I am fairly confident of is that certainly someone has to be able to come up with some compelling use cases for LBSN beyond plain old check-ins.
Geofencing certainly has some interesting potential. Brightkite's long-forgotten Wall feature is interesting and seems like it could be put to good use in some way. For all the flak it's been getting over just about everything lately, Google should probably get some credit for Latitude even though no one seems to use it. LBSN running in the background is far more interesting to me and strikes me as far more useful than the check-in model, although there are certainly privacy implications users need to be aware of. Microsoft Vine never got much attention and seems to have been completely forgotten, which is a shame since it's an LBSN service that has an important purpose - providing a means for people to stay connected in case of emergency. Lastly, although it's not exactly a check-in service, Twitter's Geolocation API also seems like it has potential just waiting under the hood, although the API seems to be completely underutilized.
The question remains for me though - what can we really do with LBSN beyond announcing our location to the world and trying to sell stuff? Maybe there's a role for it in emergency response and public safety, maybe simple fleet management and logistics types of applications. This is the stuff I'm thinking about right now, but until I see some more substantial uses of LBSN, I'm afraid I'm stuck asking the same question Ms. Clara Peller made famous a good 25 years ago.
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Post originale: http://geofoolery.com/wheres-the-beef
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