What is it with services like Gowalla and foursquare that makes folk spend their days telling the world where they are?
OK if you’re going somewhere interesting and tweeting / sharing something of interest at the same time …
Or maybe you’re using it as a sort of diary tracking your life movements but are keeping it to yourself.
Then I get that.
But I don’t see it that way.
What I see are lots of stuff like this:
John Doe checked in at Some Restaraunt
Yum, breakfast.
Maybe it’s my age but I don’t think so – as a lot of the folks I ‘see’ using this are my age.
- So why?
- Go on, can you sell it to me?
- Do you use it for sensible purposes?
I am personally not a huge fan of 'foursquare' myself or using these types of applications to advertise where I am at. I look at it and say "who really cares?" However, I live in a smaller town where there are not a large amount of places of interest to go to other than your local Starbucks, Barnes and Nobles or some other cafe/restaurant. Also, not many people in my town are iphone or smartphone users and using these types of applications. I think I would like it more if all of my friends were using this same app and I was living in a larger city. Then as I go about my daily life I could tweet or post where I am at and potentially network, meet-up and connect with others that are nearby. I see these tools as neat ways to network and stay connected to others who are in the same area. That is they way that I would use it…but not so much for keeping track of my movements for personal reasons such as a diary. Then again, maybe time will change the way I think or act as we adapt to new technologies and trends daily in this rapidly changing technological environment that we are living in today.
Well you didn't covince me to sign up … :)
I can see your point about a small place and utilising it just amongst friends / peers / colleagues but I think for that to work successfuly you'd need to almost have a private 'chat room' or whatever they would call it – so that you see only the updates of those of interest to you.
There are two ways I gauge technology success (and yes, I know these are very subjective) – will I use it and will a celeb use it? If the answer is no to both then run away. No to one or the other then it's of questionable use.
LOL, I'm waiting for someone else to sell it to me as well!
I like the idea of having a private 'friends only' setting…do you know if that exists now with these applications?
Not a clue Ben and I have no intention of finding out :)