This year, 2010, has been called “the year of location.” Anything that involves location and is web-based is called Geolocation. Geolocating something is the process by which content, including videos, tweets, blog posts, and statuses, are tagged with Global Positioning System (GPS) data, such as street addresses or coordinates.

Currently the geolocation sector is booming, developments are being driven by apps like Foursquare and Gowalla with developments and advancements coming quickly and thickly. These applications allow the user to “register” at a location, share it with their friends, and receive benefits for doing so.

Applications that use geolocation allow greater interaction between the user and the environment. Users can post recommendations for restaurants, movies, good places to go, or events in the area. Geolocation also fosters customer loyalty, as businesses can offer discounts and special promotions to those who “sign up” at the business location. Foursquare is using this interaction to provide users with points, rewards and coupon offers at the places where they sign up. Geolocation can also allow companies to determine which of their customers visit most often.

For example, here in the UK, pizza company Domino’s rewards the mayor (the user who signed up the most) of each establishment with a free pizza. A more local one is a pub here in Cheltenham (The Brown Jug) that offers a free steak to the mayor on Mondays.

Currently, geolocation applications are mainly reaching the mobile market (for which they are best adapted) such as HTC, iphone and any other mobile with a GPS chip. However, along with the development of the mobile market, desktops and laptops can now be integrated with geolocation services. Popular browsers like Firefox and Chrome have offered geolocation support within their browsers.

During the rest of the year, social media is expected to become increasingly involved with geolocation and the functions that can be built around it.

Large social networks like Facebook are expected to implement their own tailored geolocation features for their 500 million users.

Also, with the rumored development of Google Me (Google’s social media site), the addition of geolocation to Google Maps and social media will provide some really interesting results and progression. To get an idea of ​​what could be created, take a look at Google’s Latitude service, which links in location with the map service.

With all the competition growing around geolocation, the future of social media will almost certainly be based on location.

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