The conference is shaping up to be a coming-out party for Foursquare, an application that lets people flag where they are — and for the entire category of fledgling geo-location services. A bumper crop of services, notably Gowalla, Brightkite, Loopt and where.com, are being embraced by smartphone owners to socialize and play games.
Venture capitalists are pouring in money. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has invested $9.5 million in Booyah, maker of a location-based social-gaming iPhone app.
“This is the year of location (at the show),” says Booyah CEO Keith Lee.
Last week, Twitter said it would supply developers with richer geo-location data. in January, review site Yelp added a check-in option to its iPhone app. about 5% of iPhone apps have location services. Facebook officials won’t comment, but independent tech analyst Greg Sterling and others expect it to soon add location-sharing features.
The service with the most buzz is the year-old Foursquare, with just 500,000 users.
Foursquare players earn points by visiting restaurants, bars or museums in major cities. The payoffs range from special deals to Boy Scout-like badges and “mayorships,” essentially bragging rights for hanging out at certain locations. “This isn’t mainstream, but it’s the talk of tech insiders,” says Sterling.
To build buzz as Twitter did a few years ago, the services are using the show to reach the general public. Last year, Foursquare benefited from a marketing blitz in which it doled out special badges, digital mayorships and other goodies. This year, rival Gowalla is throwing a big party with Lance Armstrong’s LiveStrong foundation, and it has a partnership with Chevrolet.
“All the early adopters (of technology) and Internet celebrities are here to find cool apps and share them with everyone else,” says Dennis Crowley, co-founder of Foursquare.
“I learned about (Foursquare) through friends who went to (the show) last year,” says Britt Miller, 24, of Philadelphia. She’s “mayor” of nine places. “I’ve been hooked since.”
Yet, the show is no slam-dunk for megasuccess: Foursquare has a fraction of Twitter’s estimated 75 million users.