Social Location Services Not Catching Fire in the U.S.

Maybe Facebook was on to something when it recently deemphasized its location check-in service. Cellphones may be capable of pinpointing your location using Global Positioning System or cell tower triangulation, but a new study says few American adults are interested in sharing their current location on services such American Samoa Foursquare and Gowalla.

That's despite the fact that more than a quarter of all Ground adults are using online location-based services of some kind. Getting directions Beaver State recommendations for restaurants, museums and theaters supported on your current location appear to be the most popular location-supported services, used past about 23 percentage of all U.S. adults, reported to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

But when it comes to broadcasting your comportment at your local cafe, nightspot or city car park on services such as Foursquare or Gowalla, adults don't look to be curious. "Americans are not currently all that eager to share explicitly their location on social media sites," said Kathryn Zickuhr, a inquiry specialist at the Pew Internet & American Spirit Project and co-author of the report.

In fact, U.S. adults are more likely to include their location as meta-information in tweets and social-networking status updates than to check-in. Only 4 percent of American adults use their phones to share their location via check-ins, patc 7 percent have set up services such atomic number 3 Facebook and Chirrup to mechanically include their location in status updates.

Pew besides found that smartphone owners are more likely to use social location-based services, with close to 12 percent using at least one assure-in service. That's hardly surprising since check up on-in services cater to smartphone users with slick apps that render your friends' activities, badges, local deals and mayorships. Feature phone users must check-in exploitation a dumbed-downwardly mobile site. Foursquare also offers an SMS service.

American adults may non be big on sharing their location, but the list of people exploitation check-in services worldwide appears to comprise growing. Foursquare, launched in March 2009, now claims to a greater extent than 10 million users worldwide. The service also appears to have the authority of investors after newly securing another $50 one thousand thousand in adventure cap funding. Gowalla had roughly 600,000 users as of late 2010, according to a number of reports.

The findings from the Pew Internet &A; American Life Project are based on a general telephone study of 2,277 adults between April 26 and Whitethorn 22.

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