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I recently posted about how companies are using information collected from location- based social networks to solicit consumers by offering specials or inviting consumers in who have yet to experience what they have to offer.  That being said, in the last few days, Mashable wrote in a post on Foursquare and how it is courting business users with check in analysis features.  According to the article, there are currently 30 venues using the new tool:

“Data includes total checkins, unique visitors, male-to-female ratio, social media-sharing (i.e. showing how many users are sending their checkins to Twitter), top visitors and checkin time breakdown. Users can opt-out of sharing their checkin data via settings section of the website.”

The dashboard is even said to possibly correlate check-ins with weather patterns, so businesses can offer different or more appealing incentives on rainy days. This technology, which will be available to everyone, could have massive potential for both small and large businesses.

“Just as businesses see a huge advantage to interacting with potential and existing customers (and naysayers) on Twitter, so too will they experience the same advantages on Foursquare, but with even more incentives and a plethora of data at their fingertips.”

But that’s not all for Foursquare. They are continuing to reach new heights by now integrating Google Maps and it’s current technology, calling it FourWhere . According to Mashable , users can input an address and right click on a map. The map will then display comments, suggestions, and venues in the area. It’s almost as if you have a “tour guide” right there at your fingertips. FourWhere is in its beginning stages and there will be more integration of social data in the future.

I guess it really isn’t too surprising that Facebook is integrating location-based features into their platform as well.  The New York Times  recently reported that beginning next month, Facebook users will being to see the current location of their friends:

“Of Facebook’s more than 400 million users, about 50 percent log in to the site at least once a day, and 100 million people access the service from mobile devices. That makes the location feature an area of strong focus for the company.”

We’re not quite sure how it will compare to the likes of Foursquare or Gowalla, however, I believe that because Facebook has so many users, it will reach an audience who is not currently connected with other location-based social networks.

Location-based social networking is the trend for 2010. There is no doubt about it. And businesses all over the world have the power to harness this technology, connect with customers, and bring in new ones so long as they use it right. Is your organisation currently using location-based technology? In what ways? If not, do you plan to in the future?

posted by Venessa in the category Media Social Media Social networking
Tags: facebook, Foursquare, Gowalla, mashable, mobile, The New York Times