Social Networking with Location flavors

There has been quite a lot of buzz in the web world about location based services and social networking. Foursquare and Gowalla are two start-ups which have been successful in creating a lot of positive noise and buzz by combining the social network to the location of the users.

FourSquare: Foursquare is essentially a social networking game with location as an important parameter. The game lets you earn points and get badges. The user earns points when he starts to put in his location. The user’s friend can recommend place for him in and around the area. Now by earning points the user can became a “Mayor” of a place. When the user becomes the Mayor, he is eligible for freebies in that location. So in this way FourSquare is hooking users and corporations to jump into the application. What’s more FourSquare has opened its APIs to developers to create more innovative apps on its platform.

Gowalla: This is essentially the same as Foursquare, but it has started a little bit late across locations when compared to Foursquare. Even Gowalla has its API’s exposed.

Loopt and Bright kite: Essentially both these products let the users search for friends with their location and lets the users search and explore for new places and meet new people. Both these have not been able to create the same buzz as Foursquare as there is no incentive for the user to use the application.

These small organizations are big-steps towards localized social networking. These companies are bringing and creating new business models with location specific revenues. This in turn will change many things in emerging and price sensitive markets such as India. . On the high level these may be just fun apps,but they are very significant as they may prove to be game changers.

• Developers will create more innovative apps which will generate money for the different app markets

• Business will change the way their products are sold and marketed. Business will have a better understanding of their target market since a mobile is the most personalized device any one could have.

• Lastly it will definitely change the way the consumers live.