Geo-Social Nonsense: The Future of Location-Based Services and Their Role in Mobile Development #casesmc

This is a live-blogged post during the 2012 CASE Social Media conference. This session was presented by Jeffrey Kirchick from SCVNGR.

Smart phone penetration among currents students jumped from 9% to 52% in the past three years. Mobile is important.

People use social media to increase real-life connections. Maybe you have an online interaction on Facebook and you want to move it to the real world. That is where geosocial comes in.

But does big money = big results? The majority of people do not use social location-based services.

• About 28% of people will use geosocial apps to get directions and recommendations.
• About 4% of adults will use a geosocial "check-in" service such as Foursquare or Gowalla.

Why don't people use apps to "check-in"

• Even Value Exchange: people are more inclined to do something when it feels natural and want to "get" something for what they "give." 
• Social vs. Influence: Social includes Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. and it is tough to compete in this space. Influence includes Yelp, Groupon, BunchBall, etc. Influence drives behavior. Jeff believes this is the future.
• Cool vs. Practical

The Decade of Games

• Appointment Dynamic: Farmville, you need to show up at the right time to water your crops. Happy Hour is no different. You need to show up at a certain time in order to get your discounted drinks.
• Progression Dynamic: LinkedIn, displays a progress bar and suggests what you do next to reach 100%. Airline miles and hotel points are similar examples. 
• Countdown: Groupon gives you a certain timelimit to buy the deal. Stats show this is an effective strategy to increasing purchases.
• Communcal Gameplay: Groupon again! 500 people must buy the deal before it tips. 

Foursquare Evolution

• Before: Check-in! Get Badges! Share where you are!
• After: Get Groupon deals and recommendations.

Facebook Evolution

• Launched Facebook Places: summer 2010
• Discontinued Facebook Places: summer 2011
• Why? They might have figured out that people don't care simply where you are. What is more important? What you are doing at that location.
• Winning the "check-in war" is like winning the state junior varisty basketball tournament. You're fighting a fight that's going to net you a "w," not a "W."

Geolocation is not just about checking in. It's about any service that uses GPS to interact with a place.

Some examples of location-based services: meetMoi, SmartRide, Loopt, SCVNGR, Evertrue.

Consumer vs. Enterprise: Consumer-based application strength lies in the number of users. Enterprise application strength lies in the number of clients, has a revenue model, etc.

St. Edward's Commencement

• Whrrl supported their goals to tell a digital story about their commencement day. Mentioned in Mashable as a cool non-profit use of location-based services.

Texas A&M Social Media Scavenger Hunt

• Jeff believes they picked the program (Foursquare) first and then tried to make it work for them. 
• Were the goals achieved? Less than 1% of their campus participated. Jeff believes poor game mechanics were utlizied.

West Virginia University 

• Using the Foursquare API they integrated check-in comments with their campus map. This is a great example of using geosocial right.

Thoughts on Path

• Jeff thinks it is really cool, but will probably fail. Think about using it for orientation, advising, alumni events, or small classes. 

 

Final thoughts? Don't do something for the sake of doing it. Don't do something in order to "get attention." Goals before tools.