For many people, geo-location and location-based social networks are still brand new or are completely unfamiliar. However, these networks and the tremendous growth of geo-location are not even right around the bend – they are already here and growing at a rapid pace. Will geo-location completely change the way we interact?
Location-based social networks such as Foursquare and Gowalla are being used by organizations as diverse as the White House and Marc Jacobs. Through these networks, they offered people exclusive content and experiences. The White House used Gowalla to provide citizens a stamp at check-in for attending their recent National Conference on Volunteering and Service conference – giving users a more fun experience. Marc Jacobs took location-based mobile check-ins to the next level by allowing a select number of those who checked in to win tickets to the Marc Jacobs show during Fashion Week 2009.
In addition, Twitter now has geo-tagging for its updates and has established Twitter Places for itself and with Foursquare & Gowalla. On a much larger scale, with over 500 million users, Facebook has recently confirmed that it will indeed have location-based features integrated into its platform – linking the real and online worlds in a much deeper way.
And let us not forget about email marketing. MailChimp announced earlier this year that it will have geo-targeting integrated into its emails – giving businesses the opportunity to send more targeted emails to customers and clients by IP addresses, not just by zip code or address.
As developments in apps continue and users become more adept with the capabilities of geo-location, the way people interact with one another will shift – allowing people to more readily tap into their own communities and create new ones. And with guests being able to earn real rewards from hotels and airlines simply through location-based mobile check-ins –- geo-location can guarantee that people will begin expecting even more fulfilling, localized and unique interactions from the organizations they care about.
Weigh In: Does geo-location completely change the way we interact? Or just add another dimension to our lives?
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