For those who have no problems sharing their location info with their social networks, it seems that Facebook Places is the top choice for letting friends and family know where you are, who you’re with and what you’re doing. It’s not surprising since location-based social networking apps like Foursquare seemed to be used by only a few early adopters. Facebook, whose user base exceeds half a billion people, really made the location-based social networking idea take off when it introduced Facebook places.
It was available only on the iPhone at first, but people really took to it. My own Facebook news stream is filled with friends’ check-ins at all kinds of venues. While Foursquare has nifty features like badges and tons of local deals, it just seems that Facebook is going to hold onto its position for a while since it has a bigger user base.
For those who don’t use location-based social networking apps yet, 55% say they’d considering using Facebook Places, 40% would use Groupon and only 6% would use Foursquare. The rest are divvied up between Twitter, Living Social and UrbanSpoon.
So, what are you folks checking into and sharing with your friends? According to the infographic, the top three venues are restaurants, cafes and bars or clubs. We love to eat and drink, apparently! And top of the list for check-ins that spur discussion are restaurants. Homes, new cities, grocery stores and sporting venues bring up the rear. Really? You guys don’t have a problem sharing your home location and check-ins? Brave social souls, you are.
Beyond did the study and this is what it came up with:
- Privacy is still a huge issue for the adoption of any applications that ask the consumer to disclose their location.
- Facebook and Groupon are well placed to exploit the Social-Loco opportunity through Facebook Places and GrouponNow respectively.
- Discounts and coupons are by far the largest single motivator for disclosing location. Status rewards, such as badges and being named “mayor,” are of little interest to the mass consumer.
- Whereas a lot of the focus to date has been around small local businesses benefitting from location-based technology, there is a huge opportunity for big brands that can connect with people at a local level.
- In the future, consumers are more likely to check-in at a friend’s house than they are to cafes, restaurants or bars.
For me, discounts and coupons are definitely an incentive, but I’m usually already where I want to be and will passively check in wherever I am. What about you? Which services are you using, and how often do you use them?
[Via: BYND]