Geolocation apps and services like Foursquare, loopt, Gowalla, and Facebook's Places are an online-safety frontier where consumer (much less kid) usage is the great unknown. Thankfully, the Pew Internet & American Life Project has just released some research on it – on adult usage, anyway (hopefully youth data coming soon). Pew found that 4% of adult US Internet users use geolocation services … [Read more...] about 4% of US online adults use location-sharing
Foursquare
Social location-sharing
More and more we're hearing about location-based socializing in the news – for example, Loopt and Latitude for keeping track of friends in a geographical sort of way, Facebook's new Places, the more game-like Foursquare, and Glympse for tracking kids for specific periods of time (like between 9pm and "curfew," up to 4 hours max). Well, in case you'd like a little primer on these location-based … [Read more...] about Social location-sharing
Facebook adds ‘Places’: Cellphone location service
I'm sure you've heard about Foursquare, a game and geolocation app that lets people "check in" to their favorite spots virtually when they're walking in physically. Well, Facebook now has a geolocation app like that called "Places," so users can use their cellphones to let their FB friends know where they are (only in the US at this point). In addition to checking in, FB users can "see who else … [Read more...] about Facebook adds ‘Places’: Cellphone location service
Video Barbie tight with fast-growing Foursquare
Foursquare, the service that allows people to text to the world when they've arrived at the corner donut shop (that's called a "checkin") just passed the 100 million checkin mark, Mashable reports. That's not registered users – more like 100 million Facebook updates – but it says something about the growth in geolocation apps' and games' popularity. "Foursquare has experienced massive growth in … [Read more...] about Video Barbie tight with fast-growing Foursquare
Foursquare & other geolocation apps: For young adults, not kids
More and more, I'm seeing tweets about people becoming mayors of coffee shops in my Twitter stream. They're playing Foursquare on their phones, which pushes their "checkins" or location disclosures out to their Twitter followers. Foursquare is part cellphone social-mapping game, part Yelp (another way to find food, drink, or friends using your phone's geolocation technology). "A large number of … [Read more...] about Foursquare & other geolocation apps: For young adults, not kids