Let’s talk location-based marketing
The most recent DIG:This podcast is up and its a conversation that we had with Pete Reilly on location-based marketing. It’s such an interesting space and the conversation could have gone on for much longer.
We’ll definitely have Pete on again because the location-based tools today (foursquare, gowalla, mytown, loopt, yelp, etc, etc, etc) continue to evolve almost daily and he’s deep in the space. In fact, we’ll have a podcast soon with WeReward, another player in the space.
I've still got my eye on Whrrl. I like the direction their taking toward becoming the top collective storytelling location-based social network (say that five times fast.) Not sure if it will be able to attract a huge user base – but then again Foursquare's user base isn't really that huge in the scheme of things. Right now, while location-based services are still in their infancy, is the perfect time for new and smaller location-based companies to test out innovative new features and discover what people really want from these types of services.
Whrrl is a great idea. Their “societies” centered approach brings geolocation down to a personal level with recommendations/tidbits/events catering to the type of places you visit – taking the anonymity out of endless check-ins. If a platform could combine that more customized, personal feel with rewards (e.g. Foursquare badges, $$ on WeReward, or actual restaurant discounts) – they'd be a geosocial powerhouse.