How are Geolocation applications changing our lives? (Original # 2)

The Check In Wars Foursquare vs Facebook (Youtube)

From last week's Geolocation presentation, I decided to join a few and see why is it becoming increasingly popular and how has mobile platform revolutionaized our social networking and the market. Foursquare, Facebook Places, Groupon, and Gowalla, are all important players in location-based service applications. 

On the other hand, companies like Starbucks takes advantage of these apps and build a loyal online community of customers. It is the first retailer to offer a check-in deal and it is definitely an inspirational and innovative leader that uses social media particularly well. It is the most "Liked" brand on Facebook and one of the top 10 most followed brands on Twitter (Mashable Awards). Last year, Starbucks teamed up with Foursquare to offer a special badge and a sweet mayor deal. In order to continue its sucess in ultilizing geolocation apps, Starbucks CEO has invested in Groupon, and joined the Board of Directors. 

Last Thursday, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz joined the Groupon's board of directors by investing undisclosed amount of funding. Throughout the years, the company continues to launch new campaigns and engage followers along the way. The business relationship between the Starbucks and Groupon does not only help Starbucks secure its leading position in social media marketing, but also allows Groupon to maintain its reputation by working with large, iconic, national brands. When it comes to social and digital networking, Starbucks continues to push forward, and enhance customer's in-store experience. It is much more than just "coffee". Other brands that rock social media also includes:

2.Jetblue

3.The History Channel

4.Whole Food

5.Dunkin' Donuts

(Find out why each of these brands rocked Here)

Beside Groupon's collaboration with Starbucks, Yelp is also integrating with OpenTable in order to  allow users to book reservations for restaurants using Yelp. Yelp is a social neworking, user review, and local search web site. By conbining local reciews and social networking, Yelp creates a local online community. Now, with OpenTable, users can make next dinner reservation using Yelp's mobile apps. Users can simply click to select a date, time and party size, and reserve a table without even making a phone call or leaving the Yelp page of the restaurant. This integration between the two is just in time for Valentine's Day, which is one of the busiest days for dining out. (Read more about how to make your next dinner reservation using Yelp Here)

Groupon and Yelp are both making effort to increase the number of users and enhance the power of geolocation service applications. How about Foursquare? Recently, Foursquare has been translated into 5 new languages, so that more people would be able to use the application in different parts of the world. It can now be operated in: Spanish, French, German, Italian and Japanese. Foursquare's co-founder and CEO Dennis Crowley emphasizes the importance of the gaming element, which makes Foursquare a service "almost like a game in the real world". As it reward users to check in at various places and collect Badges, it changes users' real world behavior, and drives them to go out and have new experiences.

The future is with mobile platforms, people are not going to bring their laptops around. Geolocation social networks are set to be in 2010 what microblogging was in 2008. The Next Big Thing! The reason they are so popular is simply its ease to use. Arrive at a destination, fire up the app, check in, get points, badges, or even increased status and surprises like coupons. You can also network with your friends and see where have they been and what badges have they collected. So, what's next for Geolocation? and When are you going to start checking in?