Welcome to the #ThrowbackThursday edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. Today, I'm jumping back to one of my early posts about location based services and checking-in on Facebook.
It was all the rage during the summer of 2010 to have a check-in app on your smartphone check-in everywhere. Gowalla, Foursquare, Whrrl, and Loopt were competing heavily when Facebook tried getting into the game. Facebook's initial eff... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
In honor of the big jewelry shows in Las Vegas that came to a close on Monday this week, I'm searching around Las Vegas again for this week's website review edition of the Daily Golden Nugget.
In today's Throwback Thursday, I'm bringing back a group of old Nuggets that are near and dear to my hart: Location Based Services.
One of our more ambitious events here at jWAG was back in August 2010 when we held live video broadcasts several days in a row, we called it "jWAG Live 2". Every day we covered different topics, one of which was ... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
The internet has seen many changes over the last 4 years since I started writing these Daily Golden Nuggets. Undoubtedly, a lot of that change was informed by Google, but really there are a lot of other factors involved.
Through the Great Recession, a lot of easier and less expensive technology emerged that now allows us to access information from anywhere at any time. You could argue that the technology companies forced fancy new mobile devices on us; or you could say that the technology devel... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Seventy-seven week days ago, when I reached the 1000th Nugget milestone, I got the idea that I should write a recap of all the technology that I wrote about that came and went since 2010 when I started this daily newsletter.
Although I really want to be nostalgic, I don't even have the time to look through 1000 posts to create a full list. But I'm going to give it a try and see where this goes, so let's have a little fun... Instead of learning something new today, I'll look at some old topics that I'v... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
The last location-based service we are reviewing this week is Foursquare, "4sq" for short.
According to the buzz on the street, during the last 7 days both Foursquare and Gowalla have to worry about Facebook Places. We explained our position on the substandard Facebook Places yesterday, and Gowalla has a really cool interface that we explained 2 days ago.
Foursquare is not snazzy looking, but it's fast, has real time updates, interaction between users and 3 different types of social competitive scenarios.
They really have their act together.
Here are some of the features that wow'd us: * Check in at the same location enough times to become the "Mayor" of that location. Compete against your friends. * Check in at different locations, different times of the day, and at specific events to be awarded "Badge... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Perhaps the title of this Gold Nugget is a bad pun. Today we're going to give a brief overview of the new Facebook Places system compared to Whrrl.
Whrrl has a straight forward system showing you immediate suggested things to do on the opening Home page. There's also a easy to use Check In button that, when tapped, will give you a fast, real time listing of places around you.
As people check in and make recommendations, those recommendations are pushed out to anyone else who is within the local area. We've already seen people act upon our recommendations immediately, and then reply back to us with a "did it." The same suggestions will show up on the Home page for people up to about 20 miles away.
Unlike the badges you earn from the other systems which you can use to mark your personal goals, Whrrl give you Influe... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Of the location-based services (LBS) we are testing, Gowalla has the fewest places pre-populated in their database. In a recent interview on TechTV (on ustream.tv) the founder of Gowalla admitted that they have the youngest LBS and, from our point of view, it looks like they are trying to build a better mousetrap.
Their application is very slick and refined compared to all the others; they learned from mistakes of the other LBS companies. It loads very fast, too, which is a major benefit when wanting to check out local activity quickly. It also helps to have a fast application when the user is waiting on a checkout line and only has about 75 - 90 seconds of free time. (Yes, we're measuring free time in a matter of seconds!)
This attractive system is designed to make the "Spot" (aka the retail store) the primary point of ... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Today's highlight is on the location-based service called DEHOOD which launched on May 26, 2010. Even though this service came out exactly 3 months ago, it already has a lot of users and it is positioning itself completely differently than any of the other LBS'.
DEHOOD launched as a full featured social networking application that provides direct communication to everyone in your physical neighborhood the like of which no one else seems to be attempting.
For you, the retail jewelry store, you goal will be to get yourself listed in their Places database. As of this writing, their database is not only limited, it's also a bit corrupted. Admittedly, listing in each LBS is corrupted, but HOW they are corrupted really makes you raise an eyebrow.
Thankfully DEHOOD is smart enough to allow you to add your Place if not alr... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
This week's set of Gold Nuggets will help cut through the chatter of "Location-Based Services."
Today, August 23, 2010 Facebook changed some of the functionality of their website. In preparation of today's changes they've slowly been announcing new services to the world. Last week they announced Facebook Places in hopes to enter the arena of Location-Based Services (LBS).
It seems the world suddenly woke up and is talking about LBS as if it's something new that started last week. In reality the location-based technology became commonplace back in 2005, except many of us weren't quite aware of it. If ever you read the fine print in your cell phone feature, you would have know that Big Brother was tracking you.
There are many players right now vying for the LBS crown. At this point, we don't even know who will win ... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
"...articles are easy to follow and seem to have information one can use right away." -Ann, Gallery 4, Hamden CT
"...serious kudos to you. We love your straight talk, pertinent information and plain language. I don't know how many industries have something of jWAG's caliber available, but I learn from the emails every day. Really, really nice work, and very appreciated." -Cheryl Herrick, Global Pathways Jewelry
