Why Social Media Should Welcome Location-Based Services

Privacy fears abound, but LBS in social media could radically transform how we communicate and stay connected with friends, says columnist Max Zeledon

By Max Zeledon

Twitter knows where you are. Or at least it will soon, when it introduces a feature that lets your followers know where you are when you send a tweet. The announcement that Twitter will soon give users the option to disclose their physical whereabouts kindled debate over the role of location-based services (LBS) in social media and elicited criticism that the tools are an invasion of privacy.

I've been trying out a wide range of LBS tools to see for myself whether they're useful or something to be feared. I've used Brightkite; Plazes, which was recently acquired by Nokia (NOK); Germany-based Aka Aki, which I like to use in Europe, as well as a series of lesser-known services.

My conclusion after a year of testing is that far from being a threat, sites offering LBS represent vast, unrealized potential to radically transform the way we communicate and stay connected. ABI Research predicts that LBS will generate revenue of more than $14 billion in 2014, from about $2.6 billion this year.

Besides helping us track our location patterns or the nearest Starbucks (SBUX), these apps collect valuable data about our daily routines and the routines of those closest to us. They track personal tastes in food, fashion, and music so we can receive alerts and location-based notifications. Individual users can use LBS to share relevant information and places with friends. The device maintains a record of our daily routines, and it's constantly looking for people we know who may be nearby. This added layer of movement and context is much more valuable than what's available on existing social networks, such as Facebook, that don't automatically offer location-specific information.

Potential Gold Mine for Marketers

There's no denying LBS could also become a gold mine for marketers. "Context awareness is critical when you want to buy something, and advertisers get higher targeting based on our patterns and social contexts," says Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Nadav Aharony.

Yet as the space crowds with LBS players, the challenge will be to protect users' privacy, find ways to make marketing pitches relevant, and separate useful sites from also-rans.

Executives at Brightkite take security concerns seriously and give users the option not to broadcast their whereabouts. "A real sense of privacy is important, and we spend a lot of time thinking about it," says Brightkite CEO and co-founder Jonathon Linner. "Privacy has to be transparent—in the setting menu and the post screen. It has to be very explicit." Twitter plans to make its location services opt-in, also letting users choose whether to tell others where they are.

A related but more fundamental question: What happens to the data that are being collected about our whereabouts? Who or what controls it? "We need to be the owners and keepers of our information, and there are many ways to do this from a user standpoint," says MIT's Aharony. "We can create our own groups and set our security settings and circles of trust, and how we do this is critical."

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