Location Aware Social Media Tools + Gaming Mentality = Marketing Winner

Location aware social media apps and services have been a darling of 2010 predictions. (Mashable.com 2010 Predictions) There's a bunch of names in the space, but the Alexa.com trending below shows foursquare.com solidly emerging as a favorite, with gowalla.com a distant second. It's still early -- less than 0.1% of web users are interacting with these sites -- so any of these assets could make a break out move.

So why the buzz? Location-aware apps have been around a while, right?

Well, the brilliance of the emerging leaders is to make social media into an on-going game and to integrate it into the real world of places we go in the course of conducting our life. For now, they are 'tagging-along', but over-time the addictiveness of game-play will likely start to influence where we go and how we do things. At that stage, this emerging category of social media will be a powerful marketing tool to drive involvements, actions and purchases for causes, institutions and retailers smart enough to capture an early lead.

Foursquare and Gowalla both use 'game-play' and 'leveling' strategies as a means to drive trips and visits. Both platforms incent users to 'check in' wherever they go, and provide rewards in return. Foursquare offers the opportunity to 'level-up' as the most frequent visitor, with the promise of high-scorers becoming 'mayor' of that location. Definite bragging rights, and maybe a discount or freebie from on-board merchants. Gowalla provides a 'hunter/collector' approach, with users adding beautifully designed 'stamps' and 'pins' to the 'virtual passport'. Goodies and discounts are possible, as well, but Gowalla's appeal to collectors/completists is its primary appeal.

Both these services are Location 2.0 apps. Second generation apps provide some added personal engagement that drives an action, and can be done without the physical participation of others nearby. First generation services (i.e., Loopt) let you mark where you were in hopes of connecting with a nearby friend or fellow user. Of course, such meet-ups were not always possible. Second generation services facilitate the chance meet-up as well, but provide an additional reliable level of engagement (i.e., game-play) to support our human cravings for on-demand feedback. I feel that this consistency will make second generation apps much more sticky for a much wider audience than prior efforts.

How are you using these services?

Urban Land Institute Asks: "What about this Social Media Thing, Anyway?"

Looks like the Urban Land Institute (ULI) -- the biggest trade group for developers -- is considering how its members and supporters are thinking about social media. Their big annual meeting in Europe will present findings from a survey they have up right now. Glad to see they are thinking about the connections between on-line and physical communities.

From ULI email:

"What are your thoughts on social networking sites? Are you going to be digitized? Networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, are increasingly becoming the preferred method of communication. But it is real estate lagging behind? Do we need to change the way we do business? ULI Europe would appreciate a few minutes of your time to fill out this survey on social media. The results will be presented at our annual conference in Paris on 3rd February 2010. You can access the survey at:  ULI Survey "

Individual Failure Offers as a Chance for Community Success

Expertise and specialization can create a mind focus that stubbornly ignores anomalies and misses potential paradigm shifts that arise from seeking explanation of unexpected data.

Wired's (Jan-2010) article on failure reports that "classic outsiders" --  those who are new to a field or lack certain specialized focus --  are often the ones who can acknowledge the anomaly and whose less vested position allow them a creative flexibility to seek solutions. 

In the setting of scientific research, labs who emphasized the broadest review of experimental results achieved better results. During peer reviews it was not the presentations that created better results, but the sometimes heated debate that followed. As the article suggests: "questions asked during the group sessions frequently triggered breakthroughs; a single bracing query was enough to turn scientists into temporary outsiders, able to look at their work anew."

Can a social media platform function as "community lab," providing the benefit of "outsider's insight?" The infrastructure is certainly there, but the frame of mind is currently focused elsewhere. The social web's tendency to focus on anonymity and snark impedes progress that comes from the honest sharing of, and learning from, failure.

Let's build some better examples. The best we could do is fail! ;)