This week’s stories include Zynga’s Adventure World, IPO, Newscorp’s Noah’s Ark; Groupon’s IPO, Facebook’s Daily Deals, Yelp, Apple’s patent wars, Facebook’s iPhone app; Twitter’s Bing deal, Google’s shutdowns, acquisition of Zave networks.
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Tag: Yelp
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Weekly Top 5
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Weekly Top 5
This week's updates include iPhone's 4 years of existence, Skype's announcement of an iPad app, Fring's video chat on iPad, Apple suing Samsung; Twitter's Promoted Tweets in the stream, Twitter for Newsrooms, the Obvious Corporation; Facebook's growth, Winklevoss d
isputes, new designs and ad formats, LivingSocial's acquisitions, market share and IPO, Yelp's new features, Facebook Deals rollout; Google's Transparency Report, wdyl, Swiffy, Google+, Google Health and PowerMeter shutdown, and the roll out of +1.
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Whereabouts : The next social play
Like I mentioned in the last post on the subject, ‘Location’ is back in a social avatar. A few days back, Foursquare celebrated its first year of existence, and now has more than 500000 users, 1.4 million venues, and $1.35 million in VC funding. I celebrated it with only my fourth mayorship. 😉 But there are a few more reasons why I decided to do a post. Both Foursquare and Gowalla had been launched at SXSW last year, and this year, location based services (LBS from now) are expected to be the talking point, much like Twitter 3 years back. 🙂
In my last post, I had mentioned the specific competition in the space – Loopt, MyTown, Gowalla, Yelp, developments happening there, as well as the tie ups that Foursquare has managed with HBO, Warner, Zagat. Since Foursquare is arguably the poster child of LBS, and since there haven’t been any dramatic game changing developments from other players, I’ll focus on Foursquare and a couple of players you would know from earlier.
Foursquare recently announced that it was launching a few business tools, which include basic statistics like total check ins, unique visitors, sharing to Twitter/ Facebook, gender split, time breakdown etc. More importantly, it gives business establishments real time information that can help them plan promotions, take care of customer complaints, keep track of customer loyalty etc. There’s also a page where staff can interact with customers. Though these might seem basic now, more detailing is bound to happen very soon, which will perhaps allow quick polls on menu items, service, allow optimisation that will cut things like waiting time etc. Indeed, Starbucks, which has been very active in the ‘social’ space, is now linking Foursquare to its rewards program, for instance, allowing users to earn a ‘Barista’ badge when they check in to 5 separate Starbucks outlets.
According to Alexa, India contributes to 2.4% of Foursquare’s traffic, and is the 8th largest contributor. Maybe not the surest of sources, but its an indicator nevertheless. With rapidly increasing mobile penetration, net access costs are likely to come down, and this could mean good news for players like Foursquare. Imagine the implications on the CCD controversy if the Foursquare implementation had been done. 🙂
(Interesting Read in context : Why “Where Are You Doing It?” Trumps “What Are You Doing?”)
But wait, there have been other developments too. Twitter, still my favourite service out there, has turned on geo location. The API has been around for a while now, but it wasn’t really anything that anyone seemed to be taking an interest in. The first time I saw the implementation, was on a tweet from LBhat. Check out that tiny pin at the end, and you’ll see where he tweeted from. With the kind of development that happens with Twitter’s open API, there are bound to be some interesting apps very soon. Not to mention that Foursquare is already integrated with Twitter. (All this reminds me of an app called CitySense that I wrote about almost a couple of years back)
Meanwhile, it has also been pretty clear that Facebook would make a play for local very soon. There was speculation recently that Facebook was showing an interest in Loopt, but nothing has been confirmed yet. What has been revealed is that it will unveil its location based features in April at its developer conference, f8. (location is shown on a Google Map 😉 ) Facebook has been pushing its mobile interface a lot recently, check out your logout page, or the ads on the right side of your home page telling you how many friends are using it. The article states that its more a play for local advertising (against Google) than against services like Foursquare. Business pages + location features for users + tools built from API will be interesting. But it will also be interesting to see what they do about privacy. Something that remains a challenge for Google too, especially when Buzz and Latitude are integrated.
Meanwhile, there are other interesting players emerging. Check out Miso, a Foursquare style app for TV and movies, RateItAll, that now wants to help businesses build their own Foursquare, Pelago’s Whrrl, which tries to connect social networking with real social activity – real places where ‘regulars’ meet up. Location based services are interesting because they integrate the real and virtual worlds. When I look at these and other interesting developments like say, Google Street View (have you seen Hong Kong yet?!), and Augmented Reality experiments, the ‘Internet of Things‘ I think we haven’t even scratched the surface of the possibilities.
until next time, now for vocation based services 😉
Update: Just read that we now have a check in Aggregator – Rummble. Read about it here.
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Where are you @ ?
It’s been a while since I’ve been able to write about a shiny new toy here, but I believe we now have a service that can break the stranglehold of the holy trinity of Facebook, Google, Twitter – on this blog. 🙂 Say hi to Foursquare. Towards the second half of last year is when it was hailed by many, including Mashable, Scoble as the ‘next Twitter’/ bigger than Twitter. No, you don’t need to contradict that, that’s been done too.
Though I created an account a while back, I started using it actively last week. So what do I do on Foursquare? Well, I add places, check-in to places that have already been added by others, leave tips for people (no, not the waiters) and get points for doing all this. The places getting added are most usually F&B establishments, though that’s really up to you, because I’ve seen someone adding their own home too. Oh well. If you happen to check in many times, you get to be mayor of the place, until someone knocks you off. The guy who’s added his home, he happens to be mayor of his own home. 🙂 So, yes, it also works as a game, and you can import your friends from other networks. Status updating on Twitter and Facebook are also possible. Considering that I have more than 80 restaurant reviews on my other blog, I think Foursquare and I will get along just fine. 🙂
When I first checked in, I was reminded of Twitter back in 2007. There will obviously be more features built in, it will evolve, just like Twitter has. Location based marketing is only beginning. But unlike Twitter’s cycle, things are faster now. Foursquare already has brand engagement and perhaps even revenue plans. I’d written earlier on Pepsi using Foursquare to fund Camp Interactive. Adage recently had a very good article on potential Foursquare revenue models, with separate working models for small local businesses, brands with retail chains and large multinational brands like Pepsi. Businesses are already testing out coupons based on preferences, for customers in the locality. Many places have Mayor specials. No, Barista, MG Road, Bangalore, obviously doesn’t have one.
In addition to the obvious models, Foursquare has also signed deals with HBO (for a new series called How to make it in America) , Warner (for the new movie Valentine’s Day) , the History channel etc, complete with tips and badges. The other interesting tie-up is with Zagat, a food and restaurant review site, part of which is a weekly ‘Meet the Mayor’ guide. This is more experimenting than what poor Twitter had in its first couple of years, I’d say.
Foursquare already has a lot of competition – from Google Latitude Buzz to Loopt, MyTown, Gowalla etc. Loopt recently launched the LooptCard, which lets mobile consumers avail of offers, coupons and discounts by checking-in to spots. Gowalla recently opened up their API, and a report earlier stated that MyTown had surged past both Foursquare and Gowalla. Foursquare’s traffic has tripled in the last 2 months, but there’s more competition too – Yelp recently started mobile check ins, which is not really great news for players like Foursquare because of Yelp’s existing audience. Twitter has made its move on Local, starting with trends, and will surely expand in that domain. Google Buzz connects to Google Maps Place Pages and being a part of GMail, already has a huge user base!! (Read more about the implications here, here and here) And then of course, is the new 800 pound gorilla in everything social – Facebook. With more than 1.5 million local business listings, they are bound to make a play in local soon. In India, I wonder if one of my favourite services, Burrp, will make a game out of it.
Its amazing how the more things change, the more they remain the same. We’re now back to ‘Location, Location, Location’, but with the new layers of social, and behaviour added. 🙂
until next time, keep reading, maybe I’ll be handing out special Mayor invites soon :p
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Local Authorities
Towards the end of last year, I’d read a couple of very thoughtful posts on the subject of local networks. The first one was about how small towns had their own ways of communication and collaboration and were functioning as social networks long before technology came into the picture (actually all kinds of towns). The second was about the concept of re-localisation or Local 2.0 on RWW, about location based services and their relationship with technology. Since its been quite a while since I wrote ‘local stuff’ here, I thought this was a good time to make a few notes of how local information is being aggregated and how consumers access local data digitally.
There are several directions that come to mind when I think of local networks. I am quite a fan of Burrp, and rely on it to find out the new restaurants that have opened around town. (restaurant reviews are a major section in the personal blog) I absolutely love their mobile interface, and look forward to the weekly Wassup mailer. They also have TV listings, events, spa/gym listings and a lifestyle section now. This category of sites is something I’d covered earlier. Burrp has since been acquired by Infomedia 18, but its strength continues to be the community. But these categories are only one facet of local. There are are also those operating in niches like ticket booking (movies, plays and events eg. BuzzinTown), local discounts and offers (Letsheadto, Offersforshoppers, BangaloreCoupons etc), to name a few. And then there are sites which work more as directory listings. Pluggd.in recently had a good overview (with specific numbers) of the state of local search entities – AskLaila, Onyomo, Yahoo Local, Just Dial, Metromela and Burrp. If we go by directories, Sulekha is also a name that merits a mention. Maybe, in future, Burrp will be integrated into an entire directory like service under the web 18 group’s main site, so burrp.in.com 😉
Another access to local information is through generic search engines – from local players like Guruji which has a city specific search, to Google. (local businesses via maps, movies, which also throw up review results. No reason why the same cannot be applied to restaurants and other services) Yahoo also has a version of local search. Though it could do with some design tinkering and a better UI, there is potential, especially if they continue to work on services like Neighbours, which adds an Answers layer to Local.
The third option I considered is mobile. In addition to the basic way of calling up a number for local search (like JustDial), search by SMS (JustDial, asklaila, onyomo, Google, Google Voice Search, Vodafone-MSN, Yahoo etc..its a pretty long list) and access through mobile web, or even things like the Ovi Lifecasting + Ovi Maps feature in the Nokia N97, using Facebook, I was interested in what could be tangential options. Adage had a good read on how location changes everything in digital marketing/experiences. Very bullish (I agree with the author), but sample this
Search, for example, solved a big part of the “what” problem — helping you find what you’re looking for. And while search didn’t know much about our social filters, social networking came in and offered up a “who” filter. Now we’re looking at the “where.” And it’s the combination of these filters that have the potential to change consumer and marketer behavior.
There are services like Brightkite, (recently acquired by Limbo) a location based social networking site that allows users to ‘check in’ using SMS, see people who are/have been there/nearby, and then add updates/photos to the place, which means that places have their ‘placestreams’ too. Sometime back, I had read about Zcapes – an augmented reality application – a mini blog platform on the mobile similar in concept to placestreams. On registration, you can make your own zcape for an object/event or even an activity (watching a TV show), and search for real conversations about a particular keyword (object/event/activity). The augmented reality comes in this way – in addition to being able to share on Twitter/mail etc, after creation fo the zcape, the service provides an image of a QR barcode which you could easily stick somewhere in the real world. (RWW has a cool diagram here which explains how this connects the real and virtual worlds). [You should also read some more very interesting applications based on augmented reality like the MOBVIS project, and Yelp’s recent ‘secret’ tool in its iPhone app, which when unlocked – by shaking the device three times!! – pops up Yelp reviewed establishments on your mobile screen, showing locations, ratings, and reviews for restaurants in your surrounding area!!). The recent Mobilize event also had a session on location aware mobile ads.
And then we have Twitter. Twitter’s simplicity means that location based services as well as local businesses can easily have a presence on the network and offer real time assistance to consumers. I have seen both asklaila and burrp on Twitter, and the former seems to be doing some good work. Search Engine Land wrote recently about Idearc’s Superpages account on Twitter, which uses the Superpages database to answer local search queries using DM. This can be used by other local search players too. TC had an article a few days back on another 411 service IMShopping, a human- powered shopping search site and Twitter shopping service. Twitter recently changed its TOS, leaving the door open for advertising. Twitter would do well to push the use of Twitter Connect.
And finally Facebook. While Facebook may not have done anything drastic so far in the local domain, the sheer amount of users, and their data is in itself a reason to look at the potential. There are services like Living Social, which operate in the review space, and which utilise the Facebook user base (among others) for increasing its reach. Facebook’s search now also shows web search results, powered by Bing. Now add to this its recent acquisition Friendfeed’s ability to aggregate data from various services, and finally add (potentially) the ability to add real time data to these search results from friends or further degrees of connections. This search could be any of things we discussed in local search – movies, restaurants, events, discounts, even regular directory listed services. That makes it vanilla search + real time+ social layer. The addition of the @ tags feature (like Twitter) means that it will be easier for people to share experiences with each other or to invite others. Though there are several things to iron out in this feature (privacy, security), also included will be the ability to add businesses/events etc through tags. So, through FB pages businesses can give basic information on FB itself, and even display @conversations directed at them. Now we’re talking, eh? But the killer feature (though nothing new) hasn’t been mentioned yet. Facebook Connect, which is being used by local hyperlocal services like City Search to add a social layer to search. This can be added to any local listings site/event etc, and add an additional benefit to searches done inside Facebook. Incidentally, you can log in to Brightkite using FB Connect too. Recently Facebook also announced that they’re launching ‘Facebook Connect for the Mobile Web‘.
[ Have consciously not included traditional media. But in case you want to add to the above five directions, please do so in the comments section, and I shall update the post.]
So many options. For users to find the content they want, and for businesses to appear in context – place and time. An understanding of the intent of the search -from both sides would be essential for gratification. As the mashup of reality and virtuality progresses at a furious pace, the importance of local search will increase. Accuracy – including semantic ability, real time, social experience, all will play a part. Google is Google because of what it made out of data, search and contextual ads. Google is already moving in on the local web yellow pages in many markets, but as discussed above, they may not be the only players in the game. I think local search might be a more difficult battle.
until next time, location, location, location