Mobile 101: Checking In Basics
Submitted by agardina on Mon, 03/29/2010 - 03:33
Foursquare, Gowalla and Whrrl (among others) were incredibly popular at this year's South by Southwest Interactive Conference. These location-based applications helped attendees connect with friends, discover popular panels, link up at parties and win (completely virtual) badges. As the popularity of these apps increases, I thought I'd dedicate a few posts to the basics of "Checking In". In my next few posts, I'll cover:
- An overview of the most popular geolocation applications
- Pros & cons of using these apps
- Uses for business & organizations
First, a few statistics about the current state of mobile:
- 1 in 2 Americans will have a smartphone by Christmas 2011 (compared to 1 in 10 in Summer 2008) [source]
- Smartphone traffic has grown almost 200% over the last year [source]
- As of January, over 3 billion applications had been downloaded from Apple's iTunes store in less than 18 months. [source]
- Social network usage on smartphones is rapidly growing: Twitter usage is up 347% over the past year and Facebook mobile use is up 112%. [source]
The growth of mobile is astounding. There are implications for individuals, businesses and organizations - and geolocation applications play a big role in that. Where do you think the mobile train is headed?
