Taking Your Online Social Network Into the Streets

-- By BradleyMullins - 12 Dec 2009

I’ve been a member of plenty of social networking websites, but have never questioned the effect these sites have had on my real-life friendships. With the transition of social networking to the mobile phone, however, comes a new opportunity: now not only can I know what things my friends are doing, but I can know where they are doing them. Location-based social networking presents an interesting dilemma: is a new opportunity for socialization worth broadcasting my whereabouts?

Making Offline Connections Using an Online Network

Location-based social networking offers a number of benefits. It allows a user to meet people in her area, quickly find information about her location, or just let her friends know where she is. Tweets can now be geotagged, so when a user is letting the world know how strenuously she is studying at Starbucks, one of her “followers” walking nearby can stop in and buy her a latte. Location-based social networking can also be used more proactively. foursquare, thought by some to be the next social networking king, allows users to set up real-life meetings with friends, all while playing a virtual game in which users can earn points and unlock badges by “checking-in” at various locations. Through this “check-in” process, a foursquare user tells friends where she is, and also gives them personal tips about that location. By being the most frequent visitor to a particular location, a foursquare user can become the “mayor” of that location, earning bragging rights and maybe even a free drink.

Yet location-based social networks need not only benefit a user’s friends – they can also be used for completely selfish reasons. Recording a location through a social network can help a user remember her past travels. Google’s Latitude takes this one step further with its Location History feature, an opt-in service that keeps a full history of all of every location a user visits. Google Latitude could be an especially valuable tool for assisting a user trying to find that wallet lost after an epic night out, by directing the user back to the last few establishments she stumbled into the previous evening.

Location-based social networking also has the potential to operate as a convenient dating service, aligning potential mates not only by shared interests, but also by physical proximity. Services such as Skout and Grindr operate simply: users are shown basic profiles that include the pictures of other members and a measurement of how far away the other members are from the user. A user is then able to initiate private conversation, as well send a more specific location. Other services, such as the UK’s StreetSpark, allow users to create more detailed profiles, which facilitates the ranking of potential mates’ compatibilities.

Keeping Location Private

All of the above mentioned location-based social networks present privacy concerns. All also attempt to alleviate these concerns in some way. For services like foursquare, which are primarily directed more towards sharing location with an already-established group of friends, the privacy concerns may be less substantial. Foursquare allows users to go “off-the-grid,” meaning that friends will be able to see that a user has “checked-in” at a certain time, but not the user’s location. Interestingly enough, however, foursquare’s privacy policy does not once mention users’ location information. While foursquare does generally promise not to sell users’ “personal information,” it leaves open the ability to distribute users’ locations. This is clearly beneficial to foursquare, as it intends to make it profit by facilitating advertising between businesses and nearby foursquare users. Users, however, may find it obtrusive, not to mention creepy, to be presented with a new offer every time they walk by the local Pizza Hut.

One of foursquare’s competitors, Gowalla? , is somewhat more straightforward in its privacy policy. It even attempts to instill a bit of privacy concern in its users, stating: “Please note, though, that by its nature, your location information is subject to abuse, misuse, and over-monitoring by others including, perhaps, by your friends, family, or acquaintances.” Gowalla places some of the responsibility for maintaining privacy on the users themselves, by requiring users to adjust their privacy settings to prevent their location from being shared publicly. Gowalla also explicitly states that it “does not share your personally identifiable information or personally-identifiable location information with other, third-party companies for their commercial or marketing use without your express consent.” Note that “location information” is qualified by the term “personally-identifiable” – this implies that there is some degree of location information that may be shared, but not how this information is delineated.

Privacy concerns become even more apparent with services that do not limited the sharing of location information solely to a user’s selected friends. While a service like Grindr only provides distance and not directional information, it would not be difficult to see how such services could be used to facilitate stalking – never mind the awkwardness of turning on the service to find a bevy of other users zero feet away. A service like foursquare can also present a risk, even with privacy settings limiting information to friends. All it takes is for one user to “check-in” at a house party for a private address to be shared with the entire foursquare community.

Finding a Balance

Location-based social networks offer a number of potential benefits, but at the cost of privacy. Because these services are based upon the utilization of user's location, however, most users will likely at least consider the impact they may have on privacy before signing up. For this reason, the privacy concerns are somewhat less alarming than those presented by other services that record and use users location in a more clandestine manner, such as Sprint's sharing of customer information. As for location-based social networks, if their use actually result in more people engaging in face-to-face communication, perhaps that benefit will outweigh the privacy cost.