Another visual-information graphic from Social Media Graphics shows us the current State of Location Based Services. This graphic is just a little bit harder to read than most, as it avoids naming names and instead relies on logos (fortunately there is a prominent legend.) It looks like, in population numbers, Loopt dominates with FourSquare and Booyah! not far behind. Facebook Places may not have the population, but it rivals everything, except Gowalla,  in interoperability (API and connections). I don't know why the CEOs got included in this, but their portraits are also featured next to the legend of their company logos. Localization is, of course, on of the biggest trends, converging social media, commerce, search and adv

A recent lawsuit out of California names Facebook a defendant in a class action lawsuit alleging that their advertising model misappropriates the likeness and names of teens who use the system. The lawsuit hinges on the fact that advertisements, while shown to everyone, can also be “Liked.” A function of Facebook where if a user appreciates something and wants their friends to be aware of their appreciation they click a button marked “Like” near the item. In almost every case, clicking “Like” republishes that element in a message on the walls of networked friends—and, in the case of advertisements, the person who clicked “Like” becomes a vehicle for the exposure of that advertisement. PR Newswire fills us in on the c

This connection will put two extremely powerful technologies together: the social networking maelstrom of Facebook and the participatory culture insights of SCVNGR. Google’s offering connects location based social gaming in a way that generates a sort of casual ARG (Alternate Reality Game) for users. Enabling them to earn points, generate reputation, and involve friends, and discover new things all from their mobile phones. The particularly stunning element of SCVNGR, which will probably cause it to catch fire when it reaches enough people, is their concept of challenge stories. People who have connected through Facebook Places with this app will find themselves working against and with one another to achieve particular goals, driven i

For a while now, eyes have been on Twitter, wondering exactly how the service will monetize itself.  This has been amplified by recent changes Twitter is making with its features and staff. Especially looking at how microblogging doesn’t lend itself to easy advertising (no way to attach pictures or traditional advertisements to 140 characters at a time.) The first offering would be “Promoted Tweets”. Paul Verna at Emarketer discusses its early turnout, Early participants included Virgin America, NBC Universal’s Bravo and Red Bull. Virgin America used Promoted Tweets to announce an expansion into Toronto and a 50%-off promotion for the first 500 travelers who flew from two California airports into the Canadian city. Adweek repor

There are a lot of social monitoring products existing online. One of the latest additions to this populated market is Sprout Social, which was announced just today. It enables businesses to monitor all their social networks across the internet on a single web-based dashboard. This includes Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, LinkedIn, and Foursquare. What's its point of differentiation in a rapidly crowding market?  From Sprout Social: "We’ve put the most comprehensive set of business oriented tools in one place to help you manage your entire social presence brilliantly. We connected all the major networks, built tools to make sense of the information and invented new ways to connect with highly-targeted potential customers. Then we made it

Today,   is launching a location-based publishing platform to go along with its hyper-local business directory.  This move is designed to put MerchantCircle on the map with competitors like AOL’s local content network Patch, Facebook Places, and FourSquare. With this system, local merchants both make money off their expertise and also guide further customers to their stores via participation in the app. This is all part of a growing trend of hyper-local mobile applications and social networking. Earlier this week, a story ran about the release of a hyper-local travel content network released by Nileguide. A content system dubbed “Ask Locals”, which adds the participation of locals to their tourism and exploration guide.

It’s barely been a week since Facebook Places launched, and the buzz has not slowed around its business potential, marketing prowess and startup-squashing powers.  But a Wall Street Journal article today reminds us that it’s far too soon to jump to major conclusions around the business of geo-location and marketing, particularly as it pertains to startups and social networking giant Facebook. WSJ asks, Will business continue to use the service? Several other pieces have to fall into place for the services to become more mainstream, said Sree Sreenivasan, a digital media professor at Columbia University. “You need customers who buy into the technology and are willing to use it, and you need businesses that are savvy enough to use it

Although a relatively new approach to technology and community, social gaming has been taking the scene by storm. According to The NPD Group, almost 57 million people have been involved in some manner of social network game in the last three months. People who end up spending an hour a day watering their plants and feeding their animals in Farmville are certainly in popular company. Helen Legatt over at BizReport, writes about the new trend, "Although 35% of social network gamers are new to gaming, it's clear that a lot of existing gamers have been drawn into the social network gaming arena as well," said NPD Group analyst Anita Frazier. Will this spend on social gaming affect other gaming genres? Yes, says NPD, saying "social netw

Social media analytics tool Viralheat is launching a new product today: Social Trends bring fresh visualization features to Viralheat’s steadily expanding toolkit. The startup, which launched in July 2009, provides affordable social media analytics from across multiple portals, from Twitter to YouTube, or your own social app. Viralheat’s goal to bring this data to the masses, by way of organized charts and graphs, is another instance of real-time data repurposing. Viralheat’s new Social Trends provide graphically enticing ways to compare social data sets. Want to know which NFL team is getting the most tweets, or the social reach of a brand’s last campaign? The new charting tools conjoin access with answers, in a way usable

Facebook continues its quest for better location based services. First, Facebook Places and now, the acquisition of Hot Potato. There were speculations about Facebook's interest in acquiring the location based service. However, the news was officially announced on 20th August. Hot Potato started off as an event sharing service in November, 2009. It later evolved to become an activity-sharing network. The company has confirmed the acquisition on its own blog, announcing its plans of discontinuing the service. The masterminds behind Hot Potato will now be part of the Facebook Places development team. Analysts, expect Facebook to progress in location- based services and perk up Facebook Places; Looking further ahead, the influenc