If you haven't started using Gowalla, foursquare, or most recently Facebook's locating options, you should check it out. These are basically new technologies that allow users to report their current locations online, for the world to see. Venture capitalist have poured $115 million into these location start-ups since last year.
Sadly, adoption to these new technologies has stayed in the I-phones of young, tech, savvy users (such as myself). As creepy as posting your location on-line may sound, I think there's a lot of potential in these companies. Foursquare for instance, allows you to "check-in," if you check-in to a specific location a certain amount of times you can become the mayor of the location. Users can win badges such as the "adventurer badge." The feature that I think has the most potential, is that businesses can post promotions for its users. Right now, Whole Food's special is: "For our Mayor free coffee 24/7 & FREE meal at North Side Trattoria each Friday!" If more businesses become aware of this new and emerging technology, more smart phone users will be inclined to use the application simply to get amazing promotions to their favorite spots.
Mmmm coffee sounds good right about now.
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