On the Horizon: New Location-based Apps

VerticalResponse issues an Email Marketing Blog for Small Businesses each week. The March 6th issue included an article by Senior Social Media Manager Derek Overbey about new location-based apps that use a consumer "smartphone's GPS to enable you to 'check-in' at different locations in your neighborhood or around the world." Sounds like a Libertarian's nightmare, doesn't it?

Readers may be familiar with Foursquare, a precursor in this category. Derek Overbey looks at new entrants: Highlight, Glancee and Banjo in his blog and analyzes how they might be applied to the performing arts field: "Well two of the apps I mentioned, Highlight and Glancee, are using Facebook data for their connection engine. Glancee's is not even connecting the exact dots, especially with music. An example is that I might like Katy Perry and you like Lady Gaga. Glancee would say we have a commonality." (In his online article he likens it to two fans who support different footballs teams; Glancee would see commonality in that both like football, but the fans would instead see a rivalry. No nacho sharing going on there!) To be truly useful, the author adds that the commonality would need to focus "on the exact artist."

"Now Banjo, on the other hand, doesn't consider itself an app builder but rather a platform developer. They're not just taking Facebook connection information (like Glancee and Highlight), but tapping many networks including Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and even Instagram (and are adding more in the near future) to build a very complex connection algorithm.

I asked Damien Patton, CEO and Founder of Banjo, how this might work in the real world. He gave me a future example of a person who is a fan of a certain band or singer being notified via say LiveNation that there are tickets still available for a show in a town they are in. Could get very interesting. Could, indeed.