Gowalla: Social City Travel Guide
Gowalla evolves to a social city travel guide: check-ins as a commodity, storytelling at heart; http://eicker.at/Gowalla
Pew: 28% of all American adults use mobile or social location-based services of some kind; http://eicker.at/LBSAdoption
Pew: “28% of cell owners use phones to get directions or recommendations based on their current location – that works out to 23% of all adults. A much smaller number (5% of cell owners, equaling 4% of all adults) use their phones to check in to locations using geosocial services such as Foursquare or Gowalla. Smartphone owners are especially likely to use these services on their phones. 9% of internet users set up social media services such as Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn so that their location is automatically included in their posts on those services. That works out to 7% of all adults. – Taken together, 28% of U.S. adults do at least one of these activities either on a computer or using their mobile phones – and many users do several of them.”
Pew: “Smartphone owners – One in ten smartphone owners (12%) have used a geosocial (‘check in’) service such as Foursquare or Gowalla, and 55% of smartphone owners have used a location-based information service. Almost six in ten smartphone owners (58%) use at least one of these services. These are all well above the average for cell owners as a whole. – Younger users – Smartphone owners ages 18-49 are more likely than those over 50 to use either geosocial or location-based services on their phones. (There are no significant differences among social media users by age in regard to automatic location-tagging.)”
Facebook adds time to location sharing: Where we are, where we go, and where we’ve been; http://eicker.at/WhereWeGo
Facebook: “Add where you are to anything you share – In the past, you needed a smart phone to easily share your location. Now you can share your location from your computer, too, and say: Where you’ve been. Remember where you were in your favourite photos. Where you are now. If friends are nearby, they might just meet you there. Where you’re going. Friends who have been there can give you tips or even join in the plan.”
TC: “It was almost exactly one year ago that Facebook launched Places, their location-based offering. … Fast forward to today: Foursquare recently raised a large round of funding valuing them at $600 million. And Facebook is killing off Places. – To be clear, Facebook is not ducking out of the location game itself. In fact, you could say that they’re doubling-down on it. But they are moving away from the game that the ‘check-in’ services have been playing. And a result of that is Places being killed off and being replaced by new ‘Nearby’ area… This is smart, as it’s something none of the other location services have really nailed yet. And now that location is being emphasized on every Facebook action (though it can easily be turned off) – and not just on mobile…”
IF: “Facebook will remove the Places check-in feed from its mobile apps and interface, a company spokesperson confirms with us. Rather than check-in, users will be able to add their city-level location or tag a specific Place in any post. … When users post content from the web, mobile site, or smartphone apps, they’ll have the option to tag a Place, whether they’re there currently or just want to mention it. As TechCrunch illustrates, Facebook’s foot-traffic incentivizing Check-in Deals will still be available, with users seeing the option to redeem them appended to the news feed story of their mention of a location.”
Gartner Hype Cycle: eReaders, mobile apps, predictive analytics mainstream adopted soon; http://eicker.at/HypeCycle2011
Gartner: “‘The Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies report is the longest-running annual Hype Cycle, providing a cross-industry perspective on the technologies and trends that IT managers should consider in developing emerging-technology portfolios… ‘Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies‘ targets strategic planning, innovation and emerging technology professionals by highlighting a set of technologies that will have broad-ranging impact across the business,’ said Jackie Fenn, vice president and Gartner fellow. ‘It is the broadest aggregate Gartner Hype Cycle, featuring technologies that are the focus of attention because of particularly high levels of hype, or those that may not be broadly acknowledged but that Gartner believes have the potential for significant impact.’ – ‘Themes from this year’s Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle include ongoing interest and activity in social media, cloud computing and mobile,’ Ms. Fenn said. ‘On the social media side, social analytics, activity streams and a new entry for group buying are close to the peak, showing that the era of sky-high valuations for Web 2.0 startups is not yet over. Private cloud computing has taken over from more-general cloud computing at the top of the peak, while cloud/Web platforms have fallen toward the Trough of Disillusionment since 2010. Mobile technologies continue to be part of most of our clients’ short- and long-range plans and are present on this Hype Cycle in the form of media tablets, NFC payments, quick response (QR)/color codes, mobile application stores and location-aware applications.’ – Transformational technologies that will hit the mainstream in less than five years include highly visible areas, such as media tablets and cloud computing, as well as some that are more IT-specific, such as in-memory database management systems, big data, and extreme information processing and management. In the long term, beyond the five-year horizon, 3D printing, context-enriched services, the ‘Internet of Things’ (called the ‘real-world Web’ in earlier Gartner research), Internet TV and natural language question answering will be major technology forces. Looking more than 10 years out, 3D bioprinting, human augmentation, mobile robots and quantum computing will also drive transformational change in the potential of IT.”
Gartner: “Many of the technologies featured on this Hype Cycle contribute to the four themes featured in Gartner’s recent report on top technology trends ‘Technology Trends That Matter’. – The connected world: Advances in embedded sensors, processing and wireless connectivity are bringing the power of the digital world to objects and places in the physical world. This is a slow-moving area, but one that is now accelerating with the growing pervasiveness of low-cost, embedded sensors and cameras. Relevant entries on this year’s Hype Cycle include the broad trend referred to as the Internet of Things; identification technologies, such as NFC payments (which will lead to broader use of NFC for other applications); QR/color code and image recognition; application layers, such as augmented reality, context-enriched services and location-aware applications; and communication technologies, such as machine-to-machine communication services and sensor mesh networks. Although this area will take at least another decade to unfold fully, many interesting and profitable opportunities will arise along the way. – Interface trends: User interfaces are another slow-moving area with significant recent activity. Speech recognition was on the original 1995 Hype Cycle and has still not reached maturity, and computer-brain interfaces will evolve for at least another 10 years before moving out of research and niche status. However, a new entry for natural language question answering recognizes the impressive and highly visible achievement of IBM’s Watson computer in winning TV’s Jeopardy! general knowledge quiz against champion human opponents. Gesture recognition has also been launched into the mainstream through Microsoft’s Kinect gaming systems, which is now being hacked by third parties to create a range of application interfaces. Other areas continue to progress more slowly, including speech-to-speech translation, augmented reality and virtual assistants, while virtual worlds remain entrenched in the trough after peaking in 2007. – Analytical advances: Supporting the storage and manipulation of raw data to derive greater value and insight, these technologies continue to grow in capability and applicability. Predictive analytics is approaching maturity, but researchers and developers continue to apply and improve the core techniques for new data sources. Image recognition is driving new capabilities in search, retail and social media, and also contributes to advances in other areas, such as augmented reality and video analytics, for customer service. Social analytics continues to take advantage of new sources and types of social information. Computational advances, such as in-memory database management systems and big data, take the scope and scale to new levels. – New digital frontiers: Crossing the traditional boundaries of IT, new capabilities are reaching levels of performance and pricing that will fundamentally reshape processes and even industries. Examples on this year’s Hype Cycle include 3D printing and bioprinting (of human tissue), and mobile robots.”
Apple‘s iOS stores user’s location histories on iPhones and iPads: huge security and privacy fail; http://eicker.at/iOStracker
Apple responds: “The iPhone is not logging your location. Rather, it’s maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested. Calculating a phone’s location using just GPS satellite data can take up to several minutes. iPhone can reduce this time to just a few seconds by using Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data to quickly find GPS satellites, and even triangulate its location using just Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data when GPS is not available (such as indoors or in basements). These calculations are performed live on the iPhone using a crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data that is generated by tens of millions of iPhones sending the geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple.“
Game design elements in non-gaming contexts: great gamification introductory papers for CHI 2011; http://eicker.at/GRN
Local businesses: the adoption of online marketing services; http://eicker.at/2d Chart: http://eicker.at/2e (via @SocialTimes)
Gerrit Eicker 08:40 on 13. September 2011 Permalink |
ATD: “Gowalla, long-time rival to Foursquare, today announced a new direction for its social location service. The Austin, Texas-based company will attempt to offer a hybrid between a social app and a content guide, focused around local experiences. – Instead of checking in, Gowalla users will now create ‘stories’ when they meet up to hang out together. These are basically group check-ins, as on Facebook where a user can tag multiple friends at a place. After that, any tagged person can contribute photos and other content to the story, capturing it as a communal experience.”
VB: “Check-ins are a bit more of a transactional model, we wanted something that was faster and more connected and saved that memory in a way that I could share with my friends,” Gowalla founder and chief executive Josh Williams (pictured) said. “Our goal is to inspire people to get out.”
GigaOM: “Gowalla, like many other check-in services, has had trouble keeping pace with Foursquare. But the location startup is relaunching its service with an eye toward becoming more of a city travel guide, downplaying the role of check-ins in favor of discovery, travel and storytelling. – The relaunch is an important step for Gowalla, which needs to find a better way to differentiate itself. It had tried to emphasize games early on with virtual goods called items, which could be collected and traded. But it announced last month that it was ending the use of items and was refocusing on its core mission of encouraging people to go out and explore the world.”
Gowalla: “[W]e will be removing Items completely with the next release of Gowalla. While they have been a trademark feature of Gowalla since the beginning – one that our entire team poured much effort and passion into – fewer than half a percent of our active community makes use of them. It now causes more distraction than joy for the vast majority of our community.”
TC: “So will this small pivot work for Gowalla? Well, they’re certainly focusing on the right areas. Check-ins are now a commodity, the real value of location lies in both augmenting personal experiences and providing useful information. Gowalla is trying to find the sweet spot between both. They’re a mobile travel guide and a well-conceived location-based sharing tool. … You can also share all of this data to Facebook and Twitter – and yes, you can still check-in through Gowalla and send it to Foursquare. – The travel aspect is potentially even bigger. While there are a lot of people going after this problem, no one has nailed the mobile travel guide so far. When someone does, it’s going to be massive. Gowalla has a pretty decent shot of doing something unique here because of all the data they’ve been collecting over time.“