So…I used to be in a band. We had a modicum of success, selling tens of albums, and playing for sold out crowds in bars with a capacity of nearly 6. It was fun, and we did have a few loyal fans. And far be it from me to be all douchey when it came to the after-show as I was packing up the Lite-Brites and peeling myself out of my red leather pants, so I’d talk to pretty much anyone who came to the show.
There was one fan, however, and let’s call her Mel. Mel was nice as can be and came to an inordinate number of shows. She clapped loud, laughed at the inter-song patter, and bought CD’s whenever we’d put them out. We liked Mel. Mel, it turns out, lived not far from me in Chicago and I’d run into her occasionally while I was out buying groceries or whatever. Things were fine. Mel was fine.
Until one day she broke into my house and killed my daughter’s pet rabbit.
Okay, not really. The actual situation was much more blase and involved an awkward move-in for a kiss, and an even more awkward bus ride home. But it drove something home for me…while I thought I was just being nice, Mel was harboring a little crush on me.
I bring this up not to fluff up my deflated Rock Star ego, or to remind myself (and you the reader) of my innate animal magnatism, but to illustrate a point about location based apps like Foursquare and Gowalla.
How’s that for a transition?
We like to share information, but we like to share information specifically, and in a controlled environment. Sharing your location opens you up to the possibility of a face-to-face meeting, which can be notoriously difficult to log-off from if things get a little awkward. It’s easy to send a phone call to voicemail. Getting caught doing so would be tough to explain. This is the source of the facebook privacy hullabaloo, and it’s also a reason to remain wary of location based applications.
For as much as we love the convenience of the net, and how it allows us to share information back and forth, sharing with relative strangers, our information-sharing, -loving, and -consuming brains are still connected to these meat bags known as our bodies: bodies that are notoriously prone to spilled beers, or uncomfortable social situations or (on the extreme end) stabbing.
It’s one thing to be confronted by some dickey thing you said online with another online reposte…it’s quite another to have someone come up to you and get in your actual face about your opinions on a soccer team.
I would argue that any given social media application needs a a catalyst to truly take off. For twitter it was the one-two punch of Ashton Kutcher and Oprah. Facebook had a built in catalyst with it’s focus on college campuses and their free internet and bored teenagers. Foursquare and Gowalla have both attempted major tech conferences as their catalyst. It was handy because a tech conference is the one place where location based apps are definitively useful. But there’s not a celebrity on earth that’s willing to broadcast their location to a number of strangers, so the idea of getting a little inside scoop on your favorite celeb is out.
I say this as a user of both these services (though I’ll admit to being incredibly tetchy on who is and isn’t following me). So what’s the killer app for these killer apps? What tips these things from social media toy, to social media sensation?
