Is Facebook losing the location war?
For a second, it looked like adding location-based functions to Facebook would be a real you-got-chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter moment. But as we note in today’s SmartBrief on Social Media, early reports suggest some brands may be sticking with networks that specialize in location, such as Gowalla and Foursquare.
Kunur Patel argues that users on location-based networks may be more influential than the ones on Facebook. Other experts suggest that Facebook’s privacy woes may be making some users reluctant to embrace the network’s location-based features.
What do you think — are Foursquare and Gowalla better for location-based marketing than Foursquare? Why? Is Facebook at a temporary disadvantage, or is it in for long-term difficulties competing in the location-aware space?
Image credit, nfsphoto, via Shutterstock
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Posted by @jack_benoff on May 17th, 2010 at 7:24 pm
communities are about people, and brands want eyeballs. Facebook is about to hit 500 million users… Foursquare has 1 million, and we don't know how many are "active".
It will be much easier for Facebook to build the functionality and roll it out to their users, than it will be for the current location based networks to reach that kind of scale…
If I worked at foursquare and yahoo or FB made an offer to buy, I'd jump at it.
Posted by Is Facebook losing the location war? « Milansaar – Social Media & Intranet Findings on May 17th, 2010 at 1:07 pm
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