WebProNews

Tag: location-based services

  • eBay Buys WHERE to Expand in Local and Mobile

    eBay announced today that it has agreed to acquire location media company WHERE in an effort to better position eBay in the local and mobile commerce spaces.

    “Local commerce companies like WHERE are blurring the lines between in-store and online shopping,” said PayPal’s Amanda Pires on the company blog. “By giving people hyper-local, relevant retailer information and deals on their mobile phones, we see a huge opportunity for local merchants to reach more buyers, and for consumers to get more choice and value when they shop.”

    “As a first step, we plan to integrate PayPal into the WHERE mobile app to make it even easier for PayPal customers to take advantage of the local deals,” she addeed. “As John Donahoe said at analyst day, eBay Inc. is at the forefront of a new retail landscape, which is more convenient, more accessible, more local and – and more relevant to more consumers than ever before.”

    eBay has been making some major moves in terms of expanding throughout the growing e-commercesphere. These include buying Milo, GSI Commerce, Brands4Friends, Critical Path and a majority stake in GittiGidiyor.

    “Mobile and local are key areas for us,” said Pires. “This announcement builds on the acquisition of Milo late last year, bringing even more great deals and value to consumers. Since we don’t compete with our merchants, we are in a unique position to partner with retailers of all sizes and help people shop and pay anytime, anywhere and in any way they want.”

    @WHERE
    WHERE    Just to clear things up, eBay was not started because of a pez collection. 21 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto

    eBay buys WHERE
    From @WHERE’s TwitPic

    WHERE has 4 million users, offers local daily deals, and has apps available for the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Palm, and Windows Phone. The company tells advertisers they can reach 50 million users on their hyper-local ad network.

    Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

  • Groupon Acquires Pelago, Makers of Whrrl

    Groupon Acquires Pelago, Makers of Whrrl

    Groupon has acquired Pelago, the makers of the Whrrl location-based service/check-in app.

    Pelago CEO and co-founder Jeff Holden took to the company blog to announce the news. He says:

    You might think at first that this is strange… But it actually makes a ton of sense. Many people think of Groupon as one thing: the inventor of the daily deal. But as it often is in such cases, there is an amazing vision behind the company that goes far beyond what is visible on the surface today. Whrrl’s mission has always been to increase the possibility of adventure in our daily real-world lives, and to that end, we invented an idea economy (with Whrrlbot as its inexhaustible champion!) It turns out that Groupon has a very similar mission, except they approached it by creating a new kind of deal economy.

    The mission alignment of the two companies and the fact that we’ve taken very different approaches is a big part of what makes this marriage non-strange, and in fact, very complementary and compelling. And what made this a no-brainer was Groupon’s massive adoption and meteoric growth. The opportunity to take the collective brain power and technology of our two companies and point them at a phenomenon already at huge scale is virtually impossible to refuse.

    It doesn’t sound all that strange to me. Clearly, there’s more and more overlap between the location-based services/check-in apps space and the deals space, and with Google and Facebook getting more heavily involved with both of them, I’d expect to see more of acquisitions/partnerships of this nature.

    As for Whrrl itself, it’s getting shutdown.

    “Think of it as the end of the first act of a long and complex play,” says Holden. “You would be right to expect that the ideas underpinning Whrrl and many of the inventions contained within may reemerge under the Groupon banner.”

    So Groupon as a check-in app? Why not.

    At ad:tech NY last November, we heard about some interesting things brands were already doing with Whrrl. The Groupon brand should only entice businesses that much more.

    Improvements in Groupon’s own service an only help it in the fight against the mounting competition in the deals space with clones and local/vertical-based versions coming out of the woodwork, not to mention Google, Facebook, and the increasingly popular Foursquare.

    The good news is that businesses who want to advertise with these types of services are getting more and more options. Perhaps even better news is that many of these options have the potential to attract large audiences.

  • Google Latitude Check-In Offers Take On Foursquare

    Back in February, Google added check-ins to Google Latitude, the company’s social location-based service. The feature found its way to the iPhone a couple weeks ago.

    During SXSW, Google rolled out check-in offers for 60 places around Austin, Texas, and now they’ve launched check-in offers all across the United States for Android and iPhone users.

    “Checking in lets you share the places that you visit and add context to your Latitude location for friends and family,” explains Douglas Gresham, a Software Engineer on the Google Maps for mobile team. “At the same time, you can keep a history of where you’ve been while gaining status at the places you visit the most. When you gain status at places, they can now reward your loyalty with check-in offers. From discounts to a free snack, check-in offers let places give you an extra reason to keep coming back.”

    “By default, you can become a Regular, VIP, or Guru at places, but we’re also letting partners create their own status levels for you to achieve (coming soon on iPhone). For example, you can become a Champion of Taste at Quiznos or an AE Gold Shopper at American Eagle Outfitters, unlocking their check-in offers at the same time.”

    Google Latitude Check-in Offers

    Foursquare recently launched seven new types of offers for businesses to extend to customers. This move by Google should be seen as a direct competitor to this.

    Google may have started this at SXSW, but I can tell you from having been there that Foursquare’s presence was much more widely felt throughout the event and the town.

    Currently, Google partners on check-in offers include American Eagle, Quiznos, Arby’s, RadioShack, Finish Line, and Macy’s. This will no doubt get expanded much more widely in the future.

    Read here for some other ideas on how to use Google Latitude for business.

  • Foursquare: Google Would Be Great Partner

    Foursquare announced the expansion of its Venues API today, as part of its Venues Project. This allows developers to tap into information about places so they can see what’s popular in real time, tag photos, drinks, and other data, and do things like build neighborhood photo or tip browsers to create local resources.

    Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley said at SXSW today that They want to work with anyone with venue ideas. Check-ins will always be the core product, he said, but this adds to the service.

    Crowley said that he is not opposed to potential Facebook Places integration, but Foursquare doesn’t hear demand for it very often. They’re trying to prioritize other things first.

    Crowley also said that he’s tight with Google and that it would be a great partner if the timing was right, and that they would “probably” partner with them.

    On an interesting side note, apparently Crowley was in a Gap ad.

    But back to the Venue Project. On the company blog, Foursquare says:

    This is just the start of making location as easy as possible to integrate. One huge part of the Venues Project, which we’ve now made some headway on, is building a comprehensive Venue Harmonization Map. Right now, there’s no Rosetta Stone for location, allowing you to link information about a real-world place from one database to any other. For instance, if you look up a restaurant in the foursquare API, we give you our ID number for that location. But if you were to look up the same restaurant in The New York Times or MenuPages , they’d have a different ID number in their database. The Venue Harmonization Map aims to solve that, by translating those numbers so that you only have to look up the ID once. So, for instance, if you know the URL of a restaurant on Thrillist, you can find that same restaurant in our database. And the other way works, too! (Here’s an example.) The goal of foursquare’s Venue Harmonization Map is to translate between these databases, making it easier to create mash-ups, link to pages on other sites, or add foursquare widgets like “Add to foursquare” to publisher sites.

    An ambitious project to say the least. In all honesty, Google does sound like a pretty good partner candidate in that regard.

    Foursquare says its vision is to “create a powerful platform for users of any application that helps share and find experiences in the real world and, also, to build a foundation for any location-based service to use the easiest and most comprehensive database of the real world in history.”

  • Foursquare Talks Future of Locations at SXSW

    Everyone is trying to figure out the answer to getting location-based services to go mainstream. SCVNGR CEO Seth Priebatsch talked about this yesterday. He thinks this  will be the decade of the gamer layer, and that looking at game mechanics can solve a lot of the world’s problems, with location-based services playing a huge role.

    Foursquare Community Manager Chrysanthe Tenentes spoke on a panel today at SXSW about the future of locations and local online communities. Besides working at Foursquare, she also co-founded the local neighborhood-based North Brooklyn Breakfast Club and is a partner with the Brooklyn Based, a local e-newsletter. Suffice it to say, she is very close to the local/location space.

    When she first started living in New York, she says, she was always writing things down on post-it notes – places that she wanted to visit. She said she would leave the house, and wish that her phone would tell her when she was near a place that was recommended by a friend.

    Well, that’s what the new version of Foursquare does, with its Explore feature, which could end up being one of the most important features in the progression of LBS  usage. People need a reason to use an app like Foursquare, and this is a reason. Perhaps even more key is time and history.

    The information from these apps is most important when it’s aggregated (history of your friends’ use and your use), she said.  She also mentioned the app Foursquare and 7 Years Ago, which shows history. The thinking is that you might check-in somewhere today, and say something about a place today, and it might not mean much, but a year from now, it might have meaning. You can see experiences you and your friends have had based on places, and make decisions based on this information.

    That’s where things really start to get useful.

  • SXSW – SCVNGR CEO Aims to Solve Real Problems with Games

    When you hear about location-based services, Foursquare is probably the first brand that comes to your mind. They’ve arguably made the biggest mark on the space sofar, but while Foursquare faces growing competition from big brands like Google and Facebook, it also has a lot of younger peers looking to meld the digital andphysical worlds into one.

    One of those peers that gets more media attention than most is SCVNGR (which is actually backed by Google Ventures). SCVNGR “Chief Ninja” (also founder and CEO) Seth Priebatsch spoke at SXSW Interactive today in a keynote that they needed nearly 20 extra ballrooms (across the convention center and various hotels) to simulcast the talk so all interested SXSW participants could see it.

    Seth Priebatsch on the decade of gamesPriebatsch thinks that we’re in the decade of games (with the last decade having been the decade of social). We’ve heard similar musings from Foursquare in the past.The fact of the matter is that mainstream adoption of location-based services has been slow, but we’re only still in the early stages of this phenomenon. Foursquaremade some big announcements over the past week that could very well go a long way in attracting some of that mainstream appeal – that’s up to the businesses who takeadvantage. Google and Facebook offerings won’t hurt either.

    SXSW ought to go a long way too. After all, this is arguably the one event that draws more enthusiasts of this medium than any other. Some come to learn how to bettertake advantage. Some come to spark ideas or build relationships that can lead to partnerships, net funding, etc. The point is, a lot of people are here to help pushthe location-based service forward, and I have no doubt that it will penetrate the mainstream in many ways, and it won’t be that long until it does.

    Is the gaming element the way? Maybe. I wonder how much Facebook has been helped by games like Farmville and Mafia Wars. Marketing campaigns (like that of Source Code Mission, for example) will continue to put mobile/social games in people’s faces. Priebatsch says it’s been interesting to watch location-based services eovlve over the last few years, “particularly at this conference.”

    Priebatsch dissected Groupon as an effective example of turning customer acquistion into a game citing the following game mechanics of Groupon’s business strategy:Free lunch, communal gameplay, and the countdown.

    On loyalty, he talked about fostering consumers that want to be the “Norm” from Cheers, if you will – the regular. It’s more than just places though. He talked about American Express as being a good example of a company that does loyalty well (think different levels of cards). “By using status, they’ve created loyalty not to a place, but to a larger brand.”

    “Location based services are not mainstream right now,” Priebatsch said. “We’ve got huge partners that are pushing LBS into the mainstream….There’s also been a ton of money poured into the space. Big partners plus big money equals big results right?”

    So far, not so much.

    “What are we going to do?”

    He says users have to be at a place to play, and that the idea behind LBS are to create engagement at places. Right now, everyone in the space have structured this in such a way that are very tightly location based. You have to catch people while they’re at a place right now, he says, adding that something that needs to be looked at is being able to engage with places from afar. He says he doesn’t know the answer here, but that it needs to be looked at.

    “Rewards work really, really well,” he says. People will check in for rewards, but the question is will people keep checking in? Probably not.  “We might be setting up early adopters for something we can’t deliver.”

    Priebatch had some interesting things to say about school, which he says is a game and is broken, and that the game layer can help solve this. “Grades are failing as rewards,” he says, adding that they’re a simple game mechanic, and that school is a game where we don’t want anyone losing. He proposed a grading system that focuses only on positive – where students progress to different levels instead of getting negative grades.

    The part of the presentation that won the biggest applause from the audience, was when Priebatsch used the “game layer” from within the room to raise $10,000 for the National Wildlife Foundation.

    So the challenge, as Priebatsch presented is to get to the point where the game layer is able to solve all kinds of problems, which he thinks can be done this decade.

    On an interesting sidenote, he has pretty much declared Facebook’s Open Graph as THE social protocol for good.

    Gowalla CEO Josh Williams tweeted the following during the presentation:

    @jw
    Josh Williams    Has America become so entitled that we need everything to be a game? 4 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto

  • Foursquare for Business – An Increasingly Attractive Option

    Yesterday, Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley announced the new version of Foursquare – Foursquare 3.0 – with new discovery features, and mentioned that businesses would be getting some new types of specials to offer customers this week.

    Foursquare is now talking about them more today. There are now seven types of specials available on Foursquare’s new Merchant Platform: Swarm, Friends, Flash, Newbie, Check-in, Loyalty, and Mayor.

    Flash specials are offers for the first few customers that arrive at the business after a certain time. Friends specials reward users for checking in together. Swarm specials reward users who check in at a location in large groups. Newbie specials lure new customers.

    “Some businesses want Specials that are all about loyalty,” says Foursquare Director of Business Development, Eric Friedman. “For some businesses, they’ll set a Special to unlock at every check-in. For others, its like a coffee shop punchcard where you might get something free on your tenth check-in. For other merchants its about increasing visits – running a frequeuncy Special inviting those who check in 3 times in 7 days the ability to unlock their Special.”

    “We’re foursquare, and Mayors are us,” he adds. “So we still have Mayor Specials, too, for the royalty of foursquare.”

    Foursquare Has New Specials for BusinessesThe first businesses to offer specials with this launch include: Sports Authority, Applebee’s, Radio Shack, Coffee Bean, Barnes & Noble, Arby’s, Chili’s, Whole Foods, Toys R Us, and H&M.”

    Businesses can go here to verify their businesses and begin offering specials within a few days, according to Fousquare. Businesses can now manage campaigns at one or across thousands of venues. Business owners can also now view aggregate stats across multiple venues, and the number of times a special is viewed vs. actually unlocked.

    The special approval process is now instant, so you can have one running in a matter of minutes from the time of conception.

    The company claims that over a quarter of a million businesses have claimed their business on foursquare. Foursquare has 7 million users.

  • Foursquare Partners with American Express

    Foursquare Partners with American Express

    Foursquare and American Express have entered into a partnership that will see card users getting discounts at stores, restaurants, etc. via Foursquare.

    WebProNews recently exchanged a few tweets with Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley, following an article we posted questioning how Foursquare will continue to compete with Facebook and its Places service. You can see that exchange here. In a nutshell, he explained that Foursquare has different use cases, and that we should talk after SXSW, implying that multiple announcements were coming.

    Now, news of the American Express deal has come out via the Wall Street Journal. This may be the main thing Crowley was referring to as it should be a pretty big deal for Foursquare. The publication reports:

    Under the arrangement, AmEx customers can register their cards in the Foursquare system to get access to special offers from merchants who are also Foursquare participants. Customers who shop at those merchants with an AmEx card will receive credits and electronic notification that they have redeemed the offer. Merchants who participate in the program would potentially see more sales.

    The partners will pilot the service next week in Austin, Texas, at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival, a weeklong conference for technology start-ups. Sixty local merchants will honor the “spend $5, save $5” promotion.

    The two companies will reportedly expand the program into various cities.

    In addition, Foursquare mentions that Foursquare 3.0 is coming soon on the company’s SXSW page (as well as some parties, panels, and new badges). It will be interesting to see what comes with version 3.0 in terms of features that Facebook will have a hard time matching. I’m sure credit card partnerships aren’t out of the realm of possibility for the company whose valuation continues to increase.

  • Augmented Reality + Location = The Holy Grail for Marketers?

    Augmented Reality + Location = The Holy Grail for Marketers?

    WebProNews recently spoke with Layar’s augmented reality strategist Gene Becker about the present and the future of augmented reality. Layar thinks AR will become essential to consumers’ mobile experiences. 

    Ogmento is a an augmented reality gaming company that says it’s helping to change the way consumers interact with their smart phones. Ogmento recently released an iPhone game called Paranormal Activity: Sanctuary (based on the popular movie franchise), that combines augmented reality, geo-social elements and user-generated content – an interesting combo. President and co-founder Brian Selzer shared some more insights on the industry with us.

    Ogmento's Paranormal Activity Game Uses Augmented Reality

    The company says it has created the first game that combines geo-social elements and computer vision augmented reality to physically "check in" to a location. For example, if the GPS is saying that the user is standing near a Starbucks, and the phone’s camera is looking at a Starbucks logo, then a special reward will open for the players. This reward is proof that the player is, indeed, where they say they are, the company explains.

    The user-generated content comes in as users can draw out symbols on a piece of paper and have them come to life on their iPhones.

    “The combination of AR (computer vision) with LBS (location-based..) has been called the holy grail by some in marketing,” Selzer tells WebProNews. “Applications like Foursquare and Gowalla currently rely on GPS to verify where a user is. This is not accurate, and users can check in to 100 places from their couch.  People are rewarded for not even going into the actual locations. With AR, it’s an extra verification that a person is actually there, because it’s about vision. The camera can recognize a logo, or a sign, and that along with GPS makes for a much stronger connection. AR also allows users to interact with brands.. mixing real world and virtual world gaming experiences. The engagement is much stronger. So now mobile marketing is about understanding where people are, what they are doing, having them interact with their brands, reward them for these interactions, all in the real world. The dynamic nature of our games allows us to create campaigns on the fly. for locations, time of day, and much more.”

    “AR is about computer vision… seeing, understanding and interacting with the real world around us,” he says. “A traditional mobile game is not inherently mobile. It does not think about LBS, or interacting with the people, places, things around us.  With AR, we turn the real world into the game experience. This is a fundamentally different approach to gaming, and will only grow as the technology advances.”

    “LBS is already catching on quickly,” says Selzer.  “Our belief is that LBS, plus great game mechanics, plus AR will make the mix much more powerful though. LBS will likely go mainstream without AR, primarily because the tech is still very nascent.  As the sophistication of mobile computer vision advances though, LBS apps will take on an entirely new level of usefulness.”

    As tablets are becoming hot ticket items, we asked Selzer how big of a role this emerging market plays in the growth of augmented reality.  “Tablets will be great for table top based AR,” he says. “You can imagine a family around the table, viewing mixed-reality games, the same way people play board games. It will be great to experience AR on these larger platforms in the real world too, but the practicality of holding them up for any length of time is just not there. Truly, the smartphone and tablet are just a gateway to what everybody in mobile AR wants, and that’s hands-free goggles.  I’m looking forward to the day when we can stop holding up devices in front of our face, and just naturally experience an added digital, contextual layer on the real world though a set of well-designed eyewear.”

    This idea echoes something Layar’s Becker told us: “ In the longer term, we all like to envision a world where we have immersive displays that you can put on just like a pair of sunglasses, and then suddenly the entire world can be sort of continuously augmented with information all around you.”

    “It’s early, and true AR is hard,” says Selzer. “We are seeing a lot of great new AR experiments and early games on a regular basis now. The buzz and expectations are high.  Some see it as a fad, because they are judging the current state of AR and saying, ‘yeah, it’s cool, but so what?’ It’s about the ‘wow-factor’ of seeing mixed reality right now. In a couple years it will be more about having a deeper level of engagement with people, places, things in the real world… to add another layer of content onto the real world which is contextually tied to what you see.  When AR apps show that they truly understand what they are looking at on a consistent basis, that’s when AR will become mainstream. For now, it’s very cool, very fun… and perfect for gaming and marketing folks.”

    Currently, Ogmento only works for iOS, but Selzer says the company is “platform agnostic”. iOS is just their first platform. The company is already developing for Android, and says it will continue to move onto other platforms, other mobile devices, portable gaming devices, PC, and perhaps even console. “Basically any platform that has cameras, sensors, and supports Augmented Reality experiences is being looked at,” he says.

  • Foursquare Announcements Coming at SXSW

    This week, we posted an article about some comments Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley made about competing with Facebook. He responded to this, and we exchanged a few tweets. Bottom line: expect multiple announcements from the company at SXSW. 

    In a recent interview on CNBC, Crowley said, "They’re [Facebook] a huge platform and a big competitor, but we look at the things we’re doing, and they’re really kind of fundamentally different than what Facebook is doing. Facebook has really figured out how people share information online and convene online, and what Foursquare’s all about is what happens at the end of the day, when you close the lid on your laptop and you go out in the real world. Those are the experiences in which we’re trying to bring people together around."

    "Not so much the end of the day, but a lot of what’s been happening on social media and social networking over the last five or six years…it all happens on your computer," he added. "Now, the majority of people are walking around with smartphones, with GPS, with network connectivity. We think – how do you take all the great things about social media and bring it out into the real world? When the screen is in your pocket and not right in front of your face all the time."

    In the previous article, I made the comment, "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Facebook is mobile too." I pointed to Facebook’s over 200 million mobile users, and what have you. Foursquare has a reported 6 million.

    And our conversation with Crowley begins:

    @webpronews Per your article, making content available on mobile devices is diff than specifically designing around mobile exp & use cases.less than a minute ago via webDennis Crowley
    dens

    @dens Do you expect FB not to design around mobile experiences and use cases?less than a minute ago via webWebProNews
    WebProNews

    @WebProNews I think FB has a well understood use case: sharing online w/ friends. The 4SQ use case is diff: making real world easier to use.less than a minute ago via webDennis Crowley
    dens

    @dens FB Places use cases: Share where you are, connect w/ friends nearby, find local deals. Some overlap for local businesses no?less than a minute ago via webWebProNews
    WebProNews

    I should point out, that was a reference to Facebook’s headings on its Facebook Places page:
    Facebook Places Use Cases

    @WebProNews Ha, let’s talk after SXSW 🙂less than a minute ago via webDennis Crowley
    dens

    @dens Awesome. Announcement coming?less than a minute ago via webWebProNews
    WebProNews

     

    @WebProNews Announcement? As in just one??? That was soooo 2010! We’re 50 people now! #staytunedless than a minute ago via webDennis Crowley
    dens

    We’re hoping Crowley shares a bit more. Either way, SXSW is coming up. The Interactive portion of the event begins March 11.

    OMFG! SXSW IS LESS THAN THREE WEEKS AWAY! NEW APP + NEW BADGES + PARTIES + CONCERT + MOAR FOURSQUARE. DETAILS COMING. OKTHXBAI.less than a minute ago via Twitter for Macfoursquare
    foursquare

  • Foursquare’s Dennis Crowley Talks Facebook Competition

    Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley appeared on CNBC, discussing how Foursquare can compete with Facebook.

    "They’re a huge platform and a big competitor, but we look at the things we’re doing, and they’re really kind of fundamentally different than what Facebook is doing," he said. "Facebook has really figured out how people share information online and convene online, and what Foursquare’s all about is what happens at the end of the day, when you close the lid on your laptop and you go out in the real world. Those are the experiences in which we’re trying to bring people together around."

    "Not so much the end of the day, but a lot of what’s been happening on social media and social networking over the last five or six years…it all happens on your computer," he added. "Now, the majority of people are walking around with smartphones, with GPS, with network connectivity. We think – how do you take all the great things about social media and bring it out into the real world? When the screen is in your pocket and not right in front of your face all the time."

    I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Facebook is mobile too.

    Update: Crowley resopnded to this article on Twitter:

    @webpronews Per your article, making content available on mobile devices is diff than specifically designing around mobile exp & use cases.less than a minute ago via webDennis Crowley
    dens

    Facebook says on its stats page, "There are more than 200 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices. People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice as active on Facebook than non-mobile users. There are more than 200 mobile operators in 60 countries working to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products."

    "We’re seeing a lot of advertisers and brands flock to Foursquare because we’re doing some of the most interesting stuff with location-based marketing…If you’re a brand, it’s really about taking content from your brand and scattering it all over the world," Crowley said. 

    60% of Foursquare’s users are in the U.S. Foursquare did launch in five new languages last week, however (Japanese, French, German, Italian, and Spanish). That should certainly help spread its percentage further throughout the world. Crowley said that now the first few languages out there, more will come much easier. 

    foursquareBig day yesterday! In case you missed it, we launched our app in 5 new languages AND had our biggest European check-in day ever!6 days ago 704 likes 92 comments

    Since the interview, Foursquare announced its availability on all Nokia Series 40 phones (owned by hundreds of millions of people). That should help too. 

     

    foursquare foursquare, now for all Nokia Series 40 phones!3 days ago 270 likes 40 comments

    Last month, the company put out an interesting infographic about its growth. Last year, Foursquare grew by  3,400% with total check-ins reaching 381,576,305. It has 6 million users.

    Foursquare Growth Illustrated

    When the roles played by Facebook and Twitter in the Middle East revolutions were brought up, Crowley said, "We’re still in the early days of Foursquare, and we haven’t seen anything revolutionary happen yet."

    Crowley said Foursquare isn’t looking to raise additional capital, having raised 20 million last summer, and is not thinking about going public anytime soon…but maybe "years off in the future". 

     

    Getting my CNBC on. (sssh, wearing my FUTURE JACKET!) (@ New York Stock Exchange w/ @egleason6) [pic]: http://4sq.com/hiIwYAless than a minute ago via foursquareDennis Crowley
    dens

    On CNBC rocking my "Luke Skywalker in Cloud City" look. #fashionweek http://flic.kr/p/9jbdXtless than a minute ago via FlickrDennis Crowley
    dens

     

  • Foursquare Hosts Developers at Hackathon

    Foursquare Hosts Developers at Hackathon

    Recall, it was not too long ago that Foursquare released their latest developer toolset, the foursquare API v2.

    Recently, in an effort to bolster the developer community and kick start more Foursquare-based apps, the company hosted their first Hack Day event in New York. According to the Foursquare dev blog, some 150 developers showed up at the event including geeks from around the States and even a few from Canada. 

    Foursquare hosted a series of technical workshops, had engineers on hand to respond to questions, and fed the group – apparently more than 25 pizzas and 300 cups of coffee were consumed!  Attendees took part in a hackfest of 15 hours of coding that resulted in the creation of 39 new foursquare based apps – if you’re wondering why Foursquare is leading the war in the check-in space there’s no doubt that opening up their API (developers now have access to the same code that the foursquare engineers do) is the main reason why this has become not just the checkin app of choice but also the social checkin platform of choice!

    Some of the cool apps that developers created include:

    • Fourgraph – auto-generate your own foursquare infographic
    • MayThemPayMe – split a shared bill with people you checkin with
    • And the “winning” app Dealio – leave a private message for a friend when they checkin

    See complete details of the hackfest on the foursquare Blog

    Photo Credit – foursquare Flickr

    Developers can learn more about the API at http://developer.foursquare.com/

    Originally published on AnyGeo

  • Digital Signage is Getting Smarter and More Attractive to Advertisers

    Earlier this month, we had a conversation with AdCentricity President Rob Gorrie, about the potential of digital out-of-home marketing, as location technology fuels the trend. His firm counts Disney, American Express, Verizon, Bank of America, Toyota, GM, Samsung, and Evian among its recent clients.

    AdCentricity has released a new report exploring trends within this space, and he shared some further analysis with us. "The space is growing fast and, I think, is about to start growing faster than most expect it to in the next 2-3 years," Gorrie tells WebProNews. "I’m normally the cynic in the crowd raining on everyone’s happy dance and even I’m getting a little giddy."

    "In the next 2 years, DOOH screens will be intelligent enough to understand what happens to them, at the locations they’re in and around the places they exist," he says. "Makes you wonder what that means for the likes of Facebook Places or Yelp…People will stop looking at these opportunities as ‘buying media’ that’s for sure."

    Spending on this medium is doing nothing but growing, and considering the points Gorrie makes, one can only expect that trend to continue:

    Digital Out of Home Spending on the rise

    "It’s fun to watch this space grow," Gorrie tells us. "I’ve been around online, mobile and social ad networks for the past 15 years and I am continually surprised and amazed at the sheer volume of data we can use in DOOH as an ad network for targeting."  

    "From my vantage point, some of the capabilities and data are way deeper and wider than online or mobile, especially for a medium at DOOH’s adoption level," says Gorrie. "What brands can do with this medium is pretty powerful once you move past basic targeting."

    We can no doubt expect increased innovation in advertising in the medium from brands willing to put up the money. 

    Gorrie had mentioned previously, "According to Nielsen, digital video in public venues reaches more Americans each month (70%) than video over the Internet (43%) or Facebook (41%)." 

    See the Q4 Digital Out-of-Home Market Review here.

     

  • Get Up to Speed on Location-Based Service Adoption

    Get Up to Speed on Location-Based Service Adoption

    Many are claiming this year as the year of "social mobile".  Even Facebook’s CTO announced that one of the primary objectives for Facebook this year is mobile, a statement that is backed with increased emphasis on its geolocation tool – Facebook Places.

    This said, social media marketers should get up to speed on the adoption of geolocation tools, and review current insight on consumers attitudes and preferences when it comes to "checking in".  I hope to share e-marketer data from a few recent reports that will give us a snapshot of this space.

    How Many Users are Checking In?

    A study by SNL Kagan compared the recent increase in location based service users from 2009 to 2010 and found that it nearly tripled.  This, combined with the explosion of smart phone adoption, means that 2011 is bound to experience even stronger growth within geolocation tools.

    This said, a study by Pew Internet and American Life Project in November 2010 puts this in perspective with the finding that only 4% of adult online users currently use location based services.  So while these applications are likely to grow by leaps and bounds – we still have a way to go in terms of mainstream adoption.

    Where are users Checking In?

    The following is an overview of the primary geolocation applications that users are using to check in, and the slight distinctions between them.  When the SNL Kagan ranked the geolocation apps based on registered users, Brightkite was the largest application with 5.9 million users, followed by Loopt at 4.0 million users and foursquare reporting at 3.6 million registered users. At the time of this study, Facebook Places was not taken into account and since then Brightkite has removed its "Check-In" functionality.

    In comparison with these other applications, Facebook Places has a large potential to become a geolocation app of choice – simply due to the reach of the network compared to others. The network currently has over 200 million mobile users to jumpstart adoption of Facebook Places, and with a new introduction site for Facebook Deals, the network appears to be taking Facebook Places seriously.

    Why are they Checking in?

    As geolocation applications mature, users may be given more reasons or different incentives to check-in.  However, as it stands there are two studies that are helpful in shedding light on reasons why users would be motivated to use any of these services to check in.

    The first study was conducted by Webroot in July and shows that 64% of US users would use geolocation apps to get informed, followed by meeting up with friends or to meet new people. The timing of this survey and these survey responses suggests this could have been influenced by early adopters in this space.

    Another study, conducted by JiWire in November shows slightly different motivations.  As you can see from the chart below, of those that used a geolocation app – 29% stated the primary reason was to receive discounts and promotions.  This could be contributed to increased adoption of these applications (expanding beyond early adopters), or could be influenced by the increased availability of discounts and promotions from marketers beginning to enter this space.

    What is particularly interesting with both of these studies is the small amount of users who check in simply to score points or receive badges.  It seems as if users may be looking for check-ins to provide a more straightforward utility – such as providing a discount, receiving more information, or letting others they care about know where they have been.

    What do you think of these findings? Are you planning to employ location based applications for your brand this year? Please share in the comments below about the Foursquare to Facebook checkins post.

    Originally published at IgniteSocialMedia.com

  • Using Google Latitude For Business

    Using Google Latitude For Business

    Using Google Latitude is and should be a personal thing – only to be used with people you trust. I use Latitude with my friends and make sure to only confirm close friends. However, recently I met a woman that works in marketing for a health organization. She told me about how her company uses Google Latitude for business tasks. In case you’re not familiar, Google Latitude shows your location to your selected contacts via your mobile device’s GPS.

    In the marketing and sales field, this woman travels frequently and has a number of responsibilities she juggles. Using Latitude allows her boss to see her location and share tasks according to her location. Grouping errands is always a good thing, especially when it’s a part of your job! Not only does this allow the business to cut costs of back-and-forth trips, but helps this marketing coordinator get her job done – faster.

    Google Latitude

    For sales people and other employees on-the-go throughout the day, using Latitude allows management to delegate tasks, depending on location of their employees.  Especially if multiple employees are on the road, tracking their location increases productivity and efficiency of the business. Although there are other applications and services that allow management to implement tracking of their employees – Google Latitude is a tool that’s easy to use, and free.

    What shocked me most was that a business owner saw the opportunity in a product – mostly used for personal friendships – and took it to new levels for the business. Not only is transparency a theme with social media jobs, but here, it gives employers a portal to see where their employees are at any time.

    This whole concept reminds me of an app that will alert you when you’re near one of your errands. Keep forgetting to run to the pharmacy? This app will alert you when you’re near one. For android folks out there – ListPlus will do the job and for iPhone users there’s Errand Alert.

    Since there are applications that will let you know when you’re near one of your errands, do companies really need to be asking employees to share their location 24/7? Of course there are tasks that arise in the middle of the day while employees are already out, so the errand alert type applications wouldn’t do the trick. Using Google Latitude could add in the ability for those back at the office to survey which employee is closest to the desired location. Then the task could be assigned to that one person without sending a frenzied email – "Who is closest to _____ location?"

    Will GPS enabled apps end up being another staple of all businesses – like email? Would you consider sharing your location with your boss or employees?  If you already are Foursquare friends with your boss or employees you aren’t really that far away. Let me know what you think.

    Originally published at SearchMarketingSage

  • Foursquare Grows By 3,400% – Are You Part Of It?

    Foursquare grew by 3,400% in 2010, according to the company, with total check-ins reaching 381,576,305 around the world (in every country) – plus one from outer space, when an astronaut checked in from the International Space Station in October.  It has 6 million users.

    Restaurants are by far the most popular places to check into, but a lot of people are checking in at all kinds of other places, like offices, shops, clubs, movies, parks, schools, etc. 

    Businesses are continuing to look for ways to harness the location-based service to drive customers. Some are succeeding. The biggest brands on the service are MTV, Bravo, the History Channel, ZAGAT, and VH1. While the average small business may not be able to emulate the success of large TV brands with the service, it may still prove useful to explore the ways these brands have used Foursquare, to generate some ideas to implement. 

    Foursquare posted the following infographic to its blog:

    Foursquare Growth Illustrated

    CEO Dennis Crowley appeared on stage along with Groupon CEO Andrew Mason today at DLD11 in Germany. There, he talked about Foursquare’s platform a bit, noting that developers can use it to create other things around the service, and that is a key component of the Foursquare phenomenon to remain aware of. 

    How much of Twitter’s usefulness (and ultimately success) has been cultivated by third-party applications? You can expect to see a great deal of this around Foursquare, which Crowley has been touting as a great tool for local commerce (not just for big brands). 

    Foursquare is already displaying a gallery of 100 third-party apps that are using its API. If you’re looking for specific use cases for Foursquare for your business, or to see some ways your customers might be using it, I suggest spending a little time browsing this gallery.

  • Foursquare Launches Quest to Get More Local Businesses

    Foursquare announced the expansion of its "Ambassador Program", a pilot program the company launched last year that lets users get their favorite venues signed up for the Foursquare’s Specials platform. The program is designed to get more businesses on Foursquare. 

    "It’s a pretty simple idea: if you’re passionate about foursquare and want to help get more Specials in your area, let us know," Foursquare’s Eric Friedman tells users on the company blog. "We’ll reach out to creative and excited evangelists who fill out the form, offering them a pack of foursquare Ambassador Cards (custom-printed with your name) to hand out to local businesses. The businesses get details about their foot traffic and loyal customers, and you and your fellow foursquare users will see more Specials at your favorite places."

    "If you have been looking for a way to help your favorite local business and get credit for it, this is a great way to get them started," adds Friedman.

    Foursquare Ambassador Program Extended

    Foursquare users can sign up here to become ambassadors and receive their "ambassador packs". Businesses themselves can simply claim their venue here or check out the Fousquare Merchant Community. 

    The program should be of great benefit to both users and businesses. Foursquare can provide businesses with new ways to engage customers and get those customers to get their other friends into the store. For users in general, more businesses on Foursquare means potentially more reasons to use Foursquare – getting deals and other rewards that businesses may decide to offer. Sounds like a win-win. 

    Earlier this week, Foursquare and Examiner.com entered a partnership to provide tips on local businesses.

  • Foursquare Users to Get Tips on Nearby Businesses

    Foursquare and Examiner.com have teamed up to bring local Examiner content to Fousquare users via Fousquare’s website and mobile apps. This content will consist of tips or "insight and recommendations on nearby venues, restaurants, events, businesses and landmarks" from Examiner’s 68,000 contributors in 233 U.S. cities. 

    The tips will surface on Foursquare apps when users who follow Examiner.com "check in" to different places. Tips will also surface when non-followers check-in nearby.

    "Our contributors are in town and in tune with their communities, so having an extended presence on Foursquare was a natural fit," said Suzie Austin, SVP of Content and Marketing for Examiner.com. "With our contributors’ local insights and Foursquare’s geo-based interaction, users of the application now have another fun way to enhance their local experience and connect to the people and happenings around them."

    "Foursquare has redefined how we interact with our surroundings and how we share it with our friends," added Jana Trantow, Sr. Mobile Product Manager for Examiner.com. "Examiners live what they write and they have a passion for sharing information with their communities—so it’s an obvious connection and exciting opportunity for users of both products."

    Dennis Crowley, Fousquare CEO gives advice to entrepreneursFoursquare CEO Dennis Crowley has said in the past that he wants Foursquare to deliver more relevant content based on check-ins declaring the check-in itself "boring". 

    "Every check-in should mean something," he said during a speech at ad:tech NY a couple months ago.  

    Ultimately it will be more content providers providing relevant information based on location that will make Foursquare and other similar services more appealing to broader audiences in the long run. Obviously, they have significant implications for local businesses. 

    "We’re extremely excited to work with Examiner.com to share their wealth of local information with foursquare users across the country," said Jonathan Crowley, Foursquare’s Director of Business Development. "Examiner.com’s crowd-sourced journalism model is completely in line with our user-focused model, so the partnership was an obvious fit."

    Don’t be surprised if we see a lot more similar partnerships throughout the year. Usage of location-based services hasn’t been incredibly high thus far, but this will likely be the year where that changes. 

    Examiner will have a branded page on Foursquare.com where users can see all tips in one place, and Examiner badges will soon be available.

  • Google: We Already Have Groupon-Like Products

    Google’s Marissa Mayer recently made the switch from the company’s VP of search products to focusing on the company’s geo and local products. In a recent interview with Media Beat, Mayer talked a bit about how the location-based service space has gotten off to a slow start (in terms of actual user adoption), as well as some reasons that Google already has some things to offer in Groupon’s territory (as you’re probably aware, Groupon recently turned down an acquisition offer from Google). 

    In terms of that slow location-based service adoption, Mayer said, "I think a lot of this means that it’s just very early. So it’s a very fast moving space. It’s very interesting. It’s one of the reasons I was really excited to move over and work in this area. But it’s just very early, and so I think that we are still experimenting with what are the incentives? What are the rewards? What’s the user value proposition? Why should I want to use a location-based service, especially on my phone, because the phone has basically unlocked all of this potential."

    "So part of it is, as there’s more and more smartphones, I think there will be more and more people using location," she added. "We’re already seeing this with Google Maps for Mobile. But I think that as this progresses and people get more deals, offers, better offers, better value, better recommendations on where to go, start meeting up with friends…more users will adopt it."

    When you think of location-based services, you might think more about things like Foursquare, Gowalla, SCVGR, etc. but this space is closely tied with the deals space, because ultimately this is going to be one of the main ways to attract users – businesses harnessing services like these to get people in the door. 

    When we think of deals these days, Groupon of course comes to mind. After news came out of Groupon denying Google’s bid, many of us wondered what Google’s next move would be. Would they try to acquire one of Groupon’s competitors? Would they simply build their own competitor? Mayer reminds us, however, that Google already has some things that could easily compete (and in some ways already do) in this space. It’s just a matter of the right integration and implementation of products. 

    "I think that when you look at our overall suite of services, especially around our advertising, we already have some things that are like this," Mayer said. "We have things like coupons and offer extension ads that allow merchants to basically make offers to our users. So we’re looking at how we can take that technology and put it to use, especially in the location space."

    Mayer running the show in that area can’t be a bad thing. She’s got a pretty good track record in her old stomping ground (search). While she didn’t exactly rule out the possibility of other acquisitions in this area (in fact Google is likely to continue the acquisition spree of 2010 into the New Year), it’s clear that Google does in fact have a number of the pieces of the puzzle in its possession already. It’s just a matter of fitting them together in the right ways (much like in the social space). 

    Groupon CEO Andrew Mason recently called Groupon the savior for small businesses. Some businesses might have given this title to Google back when AdWords came out. While Google is not without its critics, there is no question that the company has already begun placing a great deal more emphasis on local, and is already the go-to place for finding local business info for a lot of users. It stands to reason that Google will be among the big players in both location-based services and deals. At the very least, it’s going to be hard to keep Google very far away from the conversation. 

    Then there’s that whole social layer thing.

  • Will Location-Based Services Break Out in 2011?

    Location-based services continue to get a great deal of attention as more services pop up, existing ones add features and integrations, and businesses find ways to take advantage of them. You can bet that this space is only just getting started. Over the next year, we’re going to see a lot of innovation in location-based services/check-in apps. 

    Mark DiPaola, CEO of CheckPoints, a fast-growing mobile shopping app that lets users earn points towards prizes for checking in and scanning products at stores, shared some thoughts on where the location-based service industry is headed. 

    Mak DiPaola of Checkpoints talks location-based services"Gone is the novelty of checking in simply for ‘bragging rights,’ he tells WebProNews. "Consumers will require real value in exchange for their attention and participation. Mainstream consumers begin to see the benefits of LBS apps – particularly around making shopping more personal — without compromising their privacy." 

    "As old contracts expire, everyday consumers will increasingly replace the old school phones with smartphones," he continues.  "This will be hastened by a Verizon iPhone (finally!) and Google’s top-secret Android device."

    "Smartphone adoption will facilitate a mass migration toward app usage, which will create a lot more noise in the app marketplace – especially the un-curated Android Market," he adds.  Trusted app reviews and recommendations will grow in importance."

    One of the most interesting things about location-based services is that they bring the online and offline worlds together, and we will likely see many more ways in which this can be accomplished going forward. 

    "Brands born in the app stores will create robust multi-level relationships with consumers that extend into the real world – not just through the phone or online," says DiPaoa. "This year, we saw Angry Birds launch a line of stuffed animals, and CheckPoints offers real world rewards for scanning product barcodes with your phone."  

    "The combination of mass mobile adoption, popularity of location-based services and improvements in app quality will help to create deep immersive consumer experiences that bridge the online and physical worlds," he concludes. 

    We’re already seeing location-based services penetrate TV. MTV was one of the early pioneers in this area. Now Endemol USA is reportedly developing a TV series that uses Foursquare "emulate the competition and travel aspects of reality shows such as The Amazing Race," as Mashable’s Jennifer Van Grove describes it. 

    We will also likely see a continued integration among the location-based services themselves. Gowalla, for example, just announced new integration with Facebook Places and Foursquare. Facebook Places launched with integration with other services. With so many location-based services coming out, the most effective ones are likely going to integrate with others and bring something new to the table in order to attract users. 

    Studies have shown that location-based services haven’t caught on that much, despite all the hype surrounding them. That will likely change. 

    The concept of the location-based service is still relatively new. Watch for them to become more mainstream over the next year or so as more people figure out practical uses for them and the services themselves and businesses taking advantage of them illustrate these uses. Remember when nobody "got"Twitter?

  • Businesses Can Offer Customers Deals for Checking In with Yelp

    Yelp has announced check-in offers for businesses, meaning that businesses can offer Yelp users special deals for checking in at their place of business. Check-ins are tied to Twitter and Faecbook (for Android and iPhone users), so when a user checks in, they are potentially sharing it with a lot of their friends. 

    The feature is part of the business owner dashboard on Yelp, and the company says it gives businesses a measurable way to reward their loyal customers while attracting new ones. 

    "What happens when a consumer unlocks your offer? If a consumer chooses the ‘Use it Now!’ option for his Check-in Offer on that visit, it will disappear automatically from his device in a few hours time," the company explains. "The user or the business owner can also tap a button on the phone to mark the offer as used, expiring the timer immediately."

    "If a consumer chooses to ‘Save it!’, that Check-in Offer will be saved several places on their device: the ‘About Me’ page; at the top of the business page where they earned that offer and on the Check-ins tab on the Yelp app," the company adds. "The user can then redeem the offer anytime, following the same process above."

    Businesses Are Key to Making Check-in Apps Mainstream

    Yelp’s offering is just the latest example of how businesses are able to take advantage of users checking into places using mobile apps. While adoption of check-in apps is far from reaching true mass appeal, it is services like this that are bound to nudge the whole phenomenon in that direction. 

    When businesses are able to offer users rewards, users have a reason to check-in. They’re not just doing it for the "fun" of it. If consumers start to realize that they can get good deals and save money, we’re bound to see this become more and more mainstream. 

    What will be interesting to keep an eye on is which services consumers prefer the most, and that could end up being largely dictated by which ones businesses choose to promote thier offers with. Yelp has a good advantage for that reason, given that many businesses owners are already familiar with Yelp in general. Facebook also has a clear advantage because not only do most businesses have some kind of Facebook presence already, but the social network has half a billion users. 

    Currently, Foursquare is still largely considered the poster-child of check-in apps, and CEO Dennis Crowley recently said at ad:tech New York, he’s very "bullish" on where his service is going to go for local merchants. 

    If you’re interested in utilizing Yelp’s new check-in offers features, I suggest reading their how-to guide. The feature is available in the US, Canada, UK, and Ireland. Plumbers, limo drivers, locksmiths, and other "on-the-go" businesses are restricted from using the feature.

    Related:

    Check-in Apps Add Key Relevancy Factor to Your Marketing
    Thinking of Check-Ins As Searches That Aren’t Going to Google