Location Based Services

As you walk towards your favorite coffee shop for an evening of studying, you take your smart-phone out of your pocket to catch a glance at the time. Upon entering, you search for your study group also while grabbing for your wallet/purse to buy a warm cup of your favorite hot drink. You spot your friends just as soon as the white chocolate mocha you ordered is ready. You head over to the usual table that you have studied at so many times before. You take your phone out one more time before turning it on silent to "check-in" to the small coffee shop on the corner. You just used a location based service through the Facebook application. Why did you do this? It could be to let your significant other know that you got to your destination safely, or, to let your social network know who you are at the coffee shop with. Maybe you are using a location based service because the coffee shop rewards, every month, the most frequent visitor who publicly displays their presence at the local hangout. Whatever the reason, the bottom line to marketers is that you just used location based services.

Wikipedia has this definition for location based services: "an information or entertainment service, accessible with mobile devices through the mobile network that utilize the ability to make use of the geographical position of the mobile device." Location based services include Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, Brightkite, Twitter, and most recently Facebook. In May of 2010, after 15 months of growth, Foursquare had over 1.2 million users who had "checked-in" over 40 million times. That is a lot of traffic! But now the numbers have grown significantly especially when you consider the millions of users between social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook.

It is obvious that location based services are a marketers dream because it allows them to "keep tabs" on their target market, among other reasons, but what are the benefits for the everyday consumer. The benefits below are from another blogger's post about this same discussion topic.

1. Real estate marketing – alerts homebuyers about properties in the immediate vicinity that meet their specifications.
2. Discounts and coupons – sends alerts for retail discounts within a geographic radius of an opted-in consumer’s location.
3. Keeping track of children and teens – parents can be alerted when kids leave or arrive at specified location, such as school or home.

These are simply a few of the many benefits of location based services. Can you think of any?