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?