In "What Job Does Social Media Do For You", Whitney Johnson identifies five jobs that she uses social media to accomplish. I thought it interesting to review jobs in light of what FourSquare or LocalMind might be able to accomplish. Of the four jobs that Whitney identifies as being achievable with social media, two are aligned with jobs that FourSquare and LocalMind are suitable for.

To be fair to both Whitney's article and FourSquare and LocalMind, the article was written for a professional audience and directed at expanding professional contacts. FourSquare and LocalMind have a business aspect to them but for the user who is going to check-in at a business or look for specials it isn't professional contacts they are trying to find. They are trying to meet new people when out with friends, locate new interesting places to visit or simply save money.


Two of the jobs that Whitney identifies are aligned with the strengths of FourSquare and LocalMind. These jobs are:

• Help me stay in touch with people I like, even though our lives don't currently intersect.
• Help me expand my network.

I'd view the ability of FourSquare and LocalMind to help stay in touch with people I like as leveraging fortuitious occurences. Both applications increase the odds of chance meetings if you check-in somewhere and one of your friends is looking for something to do.

As far as expanding your network, I'd say that there is the association between expanding your professional network and the use of FourSquare and LocalMind really depends upon the type of business you are in. If you are selling products or services to consumers then there might be a lot of overlap. Less overlap if you are selling products or services to businesses. I agree that these applications can expand your circle of friends but the odds of expanding your professional network seems much like a chance meeting anywhere you choose to start a conversation.

I wouldn't say that using FourSquare and LocalMind to expand your professional network is worse then attending a general networking event. Applying the same reasoning to an event specific to your profession means that FourSquare and LocalMind are much less likely to be able to do the job for you. If you use FourSquare or LocalMind during a professional event you might increase the odds of generating higher quality professional contacts but that depends on the size of the event and whether you attend the same after hour venues as other attendees.

If you view FourSquare and LocalMind from the perspective of the job-to-be-done framework, also referenced in Whitney's article, then a different idea of what FourSquare and LocalMind can be hired for develops. You are hiring FourSquare and LocalMind to meet new people and to find new places in the area you live, work or are visiting.

In this case, the job you are hiring FourSquare and LocalMind for is closer to a tour guide or a helpful friend. Both want you to enjoy yourself and maybe that's the best way to view these applications.

Note:

The LocalMind website is offline. The LocalMind URL above is a capture by the Internet Archive from when this article was published.

In a post entitled Giving Up More Than You Realize with Twitter I described how the real time and public nature of Twitter can lead you to inadvertently expose your location to anyone following you. With Twitter, the problem of implicitly giving away your location by disclosing where you currently are located is also a problem.

It is worthwhile noting that FourSquare and LocalMind remove the possibility of implicit disclosure of your location by making your location explicit. This doesn't remove the risk of telling people when you are not at home but it does ensure that you know you are revealing your location whenever you use FourSquare or LocalMind.

Note:

The LocalMind website is offline. The LocalMind URL above is a capture by the Internet Archive from when this article was published.

I recently experimented with FourSquare and LocalMind. Both are interesting concepts. If my experience with FourSquare on the iPhone 3GS is any indication then this application still needs a lot of work to improve the user experience and reduce power consumption.

LocalMind improves FourSquare because user interaction is simpler. LocalMind takes advantage of your check-in through FourSquare—if your LocalMind account has permission to access your FourSquare account. This means that you can check-in with FourSquare and LocalMind can publish your check-in and make it available to other LocalMind users.
My major complaint with the FourSquare iPhone application is the time it takes to check-in and the amount of battery power consumed while running it. The issue with battery consumption seems to be tied to the FourSquare's use of Geo Location. The entire time the application is active it is using Geo Location to bring up nearby businesses.

FourSquare makes the user work hard to check-in. To check-in, the application has to find your location, then you need to scroll through the list of nearby places and select the one where you want to check-in. If the place you want to check-in isn't listed in your nearby locations you have to add it.

The first place I wanted to check-in had many different locations with the same name. A few didn’t include addresses so I had to use the map to try and find the one I wanted. On the map, the nearest location showed up over 1 km away. This meant that I had to add the place to FourSquare or forget about my check-in. I choose to add the place and then check-in. Adding locations can be time consuming depending upon how much information you want to provide.

FourSquare's reliance on users to add locations is a problem. Not everyone takes the time to place the location on the map or add the complete address and major intersection. The iPhone application only displays city and province, not intersection. Without complete address information the map can show the wrong location for a place.

I discovered later, using the web application, that the place I added was a duplicate of another place. Surprisingly, there doesn’t seem to be anyway to remove duplicates—I couldn’t delete the location I created or modify the original location so that its address and location on the map were correct.

I really question the value proposition of FourSquare—as a user I had to work hard to use of the iPhone application and the only benefit was to put a place on the map. A place that would have been there if the business saw value in what FourSquare offers. The benefit to me, a user, was pretty much nil.

My experience with LocalMind wasn't much better. My check-in at a local restaurant elicited one question which I answered. My karma count increased and that was it. The question was about the food. Not sure what else you could do with LocalMind other than ask questions like this--it lends itself to "is it busy", "how's the food", "how's the service", etc. Easy questions to ask, but again I'm left with the question of what the value proposition is for these applications.

LocalMind stores the question and answer I provided so that other people see it. So what? Questions relating to how busy and the service are irrelevant almost as soon as you answer them and questions relating to the food are only less so. Again I'm left wondering what the value proposition is for the user? I'm working pretty hard here trying to answer questions and who is benefiting? Perhaps the person who is asking the question and possibly the business owner. I say possibly because it really depends upon what I say.

My experience with LocalMind left me wondering about simple questions like where the person who asked the question was located. I couldn't tell from their profile and really had no idea about whether they were even local. Perhaps they were but I have no way of telling. You have to assume they are local based upon their interest.

I think a major disadvantage of these applications is their user base. Their value is really tied to the network effect--the more people in your area who are using the application the more benefit everyone derives. I think a substantial portion of return on using these applications rests with the business owners, if they choose to take advantage of it and it's clear that only a few types of businesses actually benefit from these applications. For example, I did a check-in at a gas station just to see what kinds of activity the place had and was surprised to see a lot of check-ins. 


I'm at a loss of why you would choose to check-in at a gas station--unless you work there you are only there for a few minutes. Who would actually take the time to ask if there are line ups? My restaurant check-in is more in line with the use case that these applications support. Clubs as well.

In all, I'm left wondering what these applications would be like if large numbers of people where using them--if you were in a large city and into the bar and restaurant scene these applications are probably a lot more fun. If you are in a smaller city all you accomplish is communicating your location at places where there are too few people around to care.

In all, these applications remind me of the questions that people used to ask about how to use Twitter. You may recall, people Tweeting what they had for lunch… these applications pose similar problems but attempt to more directly capture the value proposition for the local businesses. I still don't care what you had for lunch and I'm not willing to work this hard when the only local businesses benefit. If the user base is small the whole exercise is pointless.

Note:

The LocalMind website is offline. The LocalMind URL above is a capture by the Internet Archive from when this article was published.

I've been reading "Do The Work!", a book by Steven Pressfield and recommendation from the Accidental Creative. The basic is idea is that resistance is the enemy of progress and you should use it as a guide post to help you find your way. An easy read but I'd have to say it was dissapointing.

It took my discovering an iPhone application called Glympse to help me understand what bothered me about using Twitter. That might sound a little strange but it turned out that what I thought was a problem with Twitter was really a problem with privacy.

The epiphany provided by Glympse led me to the realization that I was thinking about Twitter as if it were just another blogging platform. To think of a Tweet as a 140 character blog entry is to miss the whole point of Twitter and the privacy implications associated with its use.

Glympse provides a way share your location using a text message. It creates a text message that contains a URL. Recipients of your message can view the URL using Glypmse or a web browser. The URL provides time-limited location based information on your whereabouts. For example, you can send a Glympse to someone when you leave the office and they can track your progress home.

The key difference between a Tweet and a Glympse is that the Glympse is short lived and distributed to only those who receive your text message. A Tweet offers no privacy.

It is the real time and public nature of Twitter and the ease with which you can provide updates that create the potential for leaking location information. A location leak can be explicit or implicit. An explicit location leak might include Geo Tagging a Tweet or you might mention a location explicitly. An implicit location leak might be something as simple as a Tweet that says you are not home.

To see the implications of leaking location information in real time check out http://pleaserobme.com.