In one of our favorite Valentine’s Day posts of all time, Chris Dixon posted about the “geo stack” – a model for how to think about the various layers of the geolocation ecosystem.  According to Chris, the stack looks something like this: lat long detection > lat long translation (into venues, addresses, etc.) > user relationship (how to get consumers to share location) > recommendations (tips, reviews, etc.) > social graphs > monetization.  If you haven’t already, please click through and read the whole post – the comments are worth reading as well.

We’ve taken the liberty of trying to visualize this stack with a few tweaks and notes – for instance, we’ve included social graph in the “User Relationship” layer, and example companies who we see as competing at the various layers:

If you are working on something in the geolocation / social check-in space, you may find it helpful to think about where you fit into this stack, and what you need to do to stake and defend your claim in what is rapidly becoming a very competitive area.

The announcement yesterday of Google Buzz all but guarantees that Google has given up on its poorly thought out location experiment, Google Latitude. We’ve held off dropping Latitude into the deadpool in the hopes that Google would innovate around it and make it much more appealing. Turns outs, they decided to go down another path – instead of innovating around Latitude, they decided to trash it and go with something else. Whether it was Buzz, some other homegrown app, or an acquisition (if only they had bought Dodgeball back in the day…wait a minute…), Google obviously realized that they needed a better way to compete in the location space than Latitude. So what was so wrong with Latitude? Well, to state it as frankly as possible, Latitude crossed the creepy line. It was basically pitched as a way for Google to track all of a user’s movements, running all the time in the background (on phones that don’t start with the letter “i”) and then broadcast out that info to your GMail contacts. I.e. it was pitched as a creepy app (of course users have privacy controls, but people hear “always on” and they get creeped out).

On top of a bad product launch roll out, Latitude had (yes, we know it is still technically available, but we’re going to use the past tense nonetheless) major flaws as a social location app. First of all, using Latitude didn’t really add much of anything for the user. Why would a user use an app that just tracked them, where’s the value? Secondly, the app didn’t offer any benefit to anybody watching/following/tracking their contacts (we won’t go as far as “friends”), so why would anyone want to watch/follow/track? The answer is they didn’t – we’re pretty plugged-in guys here at LocationMeme and we can’t think of anybody that ever invited us, asked us or even talked about Latitude – it was a complete flop and Google needed to make a move, especially as other location apps are starting to gain strong traction.

So the logical question now is can Google Buzz establish itself as Google’s location service, and more to the point, can it compete with much smaller players such as Foursquare, Gowalla and Brightkite? And if it can’t beat these small players, how can Buzz hope to compete with Facebook (whenever they launch their location component), Twitter and Yelp? We’ll keep an eye on Buzz over the next few days and will get back to you with our thoughts on Buzz.

We want to throw one last thought out regarding Google and location. The one thing that Latitude did highlight is that Google’s greatest location asset is Google Maps/Earth. Google Maps continues to get better (free navigation in Android 2.1 for instance) and Google continues to build an enormous location database of businesses, restaurants, bars, schools – you name it. Integration with Google Maps was the correct strategy, and we hope that Google will make a way to integrate Buzz with Google Maps, preferably right in GMail. Maybe they could call it Longitude.

Another week, another major business development win for Foursquare.  According to the New York Times, Foursquare has signed a joint distribution deal with restaurant guide Zagat, not unlike the Bravo deal they closed last week.

Specifically, this deal entails custom Zagat badges for Foursquare users checking in at Zagat-rated restaurants, and Zagat recommendations included in the “tips” section on the Foursquare service:

In addition to offering a special badge for Foursquare users, Zagat will begin piping tips and recommendations into the Foursquare system, which already doubles as a user-generated city guide. Foursquare users can submit their own suggestions for activities and dishes to order at a particular restaurant, which will pop up when their friends “check in” on Foursquare from that venue.

On the distribution side for Foursquare, Foursquare mayors of Zagat-rated restaurants will be interviewed on the Zagat website, presumably helping Foursquare acquire new users.

So Foursquare gets help in two areas where they need it: they get more content to drop into its venue pages (a clear need in the face of competition from content rich Yelp), and they get distribution from a high traffic brand.

Business Development is a discipline that has taken more than a little heat during the Web 2.0 era.  In social media utopia, web services don’t need Business Development – they just expose an API and big distribution partners happily line up to build on top of the service.

Foursquare is taking a markedly less passive approach.  With a tiny team, they are signing up partner after partner: Bravo, Harvard, BART, Zagat, Metro News, etc.  They seem to be effectively cashing in their media buzz for cold, hard distribution.

BizDev isn’t easy, as it’s tough to get big companies to get even the simplest things done.

Foursquare’s apparent focus and expertise in Business Development is a surprising development.

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Who owns the address and phone number data associated with a local business?  On one level, the information is in the public domain.  I can walk into any merchant in the world, ask for their address and phone number, and likely get a response.  The closest thing to the owner of this information, the local merchant itself, almost certainly would prefer that its accurate and up to date address and phone number be disseminated freely.

But the question of address and contact information ownership gets a little bit trickier when you start talking about curated databases of millions of local businesses.  This data tends to go “stale” quickly – businesses close, move, change names, and open every day.  I’ve heard estimates that up to 40% of all listings go stale each quarter.

Historically, it’s been a costly operation to keep this data up to date. The top tier providers, companies like InfoUSA and Acxiom, employ huge call centers that are focused on verifying local business information.  These companies charge top dollar for access to this curated information.

But the economics are starting to change.  As local merchants increasingly turn to the Internet to drive more business, they now have access to publishing tools that allow them to keep their business information up to date themselves, perhaps eliminating the need for giant call centers run by third parties.

Companies like Google, Yelp, Yahoo, GetListed.org, and Merchant Circle all help local merchants keep their data updated.  My company, RateItAll, has seen a dramatic uptick of local businesses adding and claiming their listings in recent months.  Another candidate to set local business data free would be the US Government.  And how about a scenario in which the legacy yellow pages providers suddenly become relevant again by powering the emerging class of geo services and apps?  This would seem like a better long term strategy than leaving tons of paper in the lobbies of apartment buildings.

(As an aside, just last week, I thought that CitySearch might be taking the plunge and shaking up the industry with the announcement of their CityGrid API.  But when you read the fine print, one of the restrictions is no caching.)

There’s nothing to prevent any of these organizations from exposing the data that was collected via their services to third party developers with no restrictions other than attribution.  And whoever does it first will have a huge advantage in becoming the de facto provider of local business data.  Being able to tell local businesses, “Fix it once, and it gets fixed on thousands of domains,” is a powerful pitch.

And once any one company owns that core data relationship with the local merchant, there are any number of services that can be sold via that channel.   The same dashboard that lets a merchant edit their contact info might also provide tools for web hosting, advertising, coupons, etc.

So let’s do this Google.  Let’s shake things up Yelp.  Where are you RH Donnelly / DexOne.  Who is going to take the plunge?

I’ll finish with the full text of a post that I wrote in June of last year on Sexy Widget entitled “When Will Google Expose Local Business Data to Developers:“

It seems like a lot of companies are working on location based applications in an effort to serve the growing number of people accessing the Internet from a mobile device.  One of the more common application types is to detect the location of the user, and display local businesses near them – apps like Yelp, GoodRec, UrbanSpoon, and as of today, Google all do a pretty good job of this.  Other apps like Foursquare and Brightkite attempt to do slightly different things based on local business data, and there are countless other web applications built on top of local business data.

The common denominator needed to build these sorts of applications is access to up to date and accurate local business information – business name, street address, phone number, city and state, zip code.

As of today, there are two ways to get this sort of data in large quantities; 1) scrape it from other services; 2) license it from companies like Acxiom and InfoUSA.

Local business data is notoriously difficult to keep up to date.  I’ve heard estimates that up to 40% of all local business data goes stale per quarter.  With a centralized approach, such as the call centers operated by Acxiom and InfoUSA, it is a costly (and lucrative) proposition to keep this data fresh.

To me, the sale of local business data seems like an industry in grave danger of getting wiped out.

Yesterday, Google announced a new local business dashboard, designed to incentivize local businesses to claim their listing on Google.  Claiming a business means being responsible for keeping its data updated, thus eliminating the need for centralized data providers.

Would it shock anyone if Google were to expose this local business information in exchange for attribution, much like they did with the Google Maps API?  Not only would a local business data API represent another snippet of code to suck analytics data back from countless websites, but Google’s mobile platform, Android, would stand to benefit from increased numbers of location based applications.

This wouldn’t be the first time that Google wiped out an industry overnight – just ask those that competed with Urchin, now Google Analytics.

Well, that was fast.

Just as features like user profiles, status updates, and friend graphs have become standard fare on social media sites, it appears that the social check-in will soon follow.

With the entrance of big fish like Yelp into the social check-in space, and the rumored entrance of even bigger fish like Facebook and Twitter, the social check-in seems to be progressing from differentiator to commodity.

Says Om Malik in the comments section of his interview with Josh Williams from Gowalla:

“I am still waiting for services like FSQ and GOW to come up with a value proposition that goes beyond checking in — which I believe is nothing more than a cool functionality for starters.”

And Marshall Kirkpatrick has this to say in ReadWriteWeb’s “The Era of Location as a Platform” post:

The mobile location “check-in” is fast becoming the hot new status message type online. It was only a matter of time until “where you are” became a platform to build added value on top of just like “who you know” has on social networking sites like Facebook.

And here is, uh, me from my “Is Social Location a Feature or a Business?” post:

I’m personally of the opinion that social location will, and should be, a feature on many existing sites.  Location adds context to many different web verticals – reviews, search, blog posts, photos, videos, etc.

And most credibly, here’s a snippet from a Business Insider article today:

For his part, Foursquare cofounder Dennis Crowley told us he fully expects Facebook and others to launch “check-in” functionality, making it “commodity by the end of the year.”  Dennis says Foursquare’s survival depends on providing “the most incentive for a user to check-in.”

Facebook can probably get away with offering a stripped down social check-in as part of its service, and Twitter will likely do so as well, relying on 3rd party developers to do the creative stuff.

But I expect to see lots of innovation from everyone else in the coming months in order to avoid being commoditized.  Already, it would appear that Gowalla might be moving towards the travel vertical with the introduction of  Trips – user generated bundles of various checkins by theme (bar crawl, museum tour, art gallery walk, etc.).

Foursquare was the early innovator in the social check-in + game dynamics, and I expect to see them continue to go down this road.

Yelp is clearly trying to use check-ins as a validator for its core review business – a review + check-in carries more weight than a standalone review.

What other social check-in mash-ups and angles will we see over the coming months?  Check-ins + news?  Check-ins + deals?  Check-ins + photos?  Check-ins for the enterprise?

There is growing evidence that there may be widespread consumer interest / comfort with sharing their location.

With that hurdle mostly crossed (thanks in large part to Foursquare), we should now be entering a fun stage of experimentation and innovation.

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Companies like Foursquare and Gowalla are trying to build businesses – and venture businesses no less – based on helping people share their real world locations.

Local business review juggernaut Yelp recently bolted on social location check-ins to their iPhone app.  Twitter and Facebook are almost certain to turn on some sort of location based functionality soon.

So what will be the winning approach?  Will social location be won by a point solution that does one thing and one thing well, or it will be won by a company providing a more full featured suite of social features?

There’s a fascinating discussion going on about this very topic on Jon Steinberg’s blog.

Jon’s position, and that of most of the (perhaps NY / Foursquare biased) commenters, is that he expects Yelp to struggle.  Doing some back of the envelope math, he calculates Yelp will need about 10% of their iPhone users to start using the functionality just to catch Foursquare’s usage – something he sees as a daunting task.

Foursquare investor Fred Wilson, admittedly biased, has this to say:

“we’ve also noticed that point solutions often beat more full featured ones. not sure whether that will be the case here, but dennis and the team are focused 100% on this stuff. the big companies, and yelp is just one of them that are coming into this space, aren’t and won’t be.”

A look around the social media landscape certainly does show some examples of point solutions beating full featured ones:

Point solution YouTube whupped Google Video in video sharing.

Point solution Craigslist whupped everybody else in classifieds.

But there are also instances of the full featured sites carrying the day:

Facebook seems to have won photos, events, and could be on their way to winning status updates.

I’m personally of the opinion that social location will, and should be, a feature on many existing sites.  Location adds context to many different web verticals – reviews, search, blog posts, photos, videos, etc.  Furthermore, I think the Yelp implementation is pretty damn good, and I think it’s a logical extension of their existing business.

That being said, the question of “where” strikes me as big enough to support a couple of standalone business.

Take, for example, the question of “where are all my friends right now?”  Sure, people could find and share location using Twitter, but the experience would be cluttered by all the other, non location oriented tweets.  For me, the question of “where” is important enough to maintain a membership on several different location point solutions (and to write a blog about them).

So there you have it.  The answer to “Is Social Location a Feature or a Business?” is a resounding yes.  Social location will make the experience on many social media services richer and better.  But I believe the problem that social location is addressing is important and universal enough to support a number of standalone businesses.

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The social location landscape changed dramatically this weekend.

Yelp, the 800 pound gorilla of local social media, revamped its popular iPhone app in order to let users check in to locations.

So how will this affect social location services like Foursquare and Gowalla?

I think it’s a devastating development for them, a brutal punch in the gut.  It’s not a surprise that Yelp should choose to implement check-ins – indeed, check-ins are a perfect extension of local business reviews.  In some ways a check-in IS a review – an implicit endorsement of a local business, in the same way that sales data is a vote of confidence for a product (see Blippy).  And it’s much easier to check-in to a venue from a mobile phone than it is to write a review of that venue.

But what is a surprise is how fast Yelp moved.  To roll out as polished a product as their most recent iPhone release, they had to have begun development months ago.  And the fact that they chose to risk totally revamping a highly successful and popular iPhone app, as opposed to building a separate app, shows just how big Yelp is betting on check-ins.

In the TechCrunch article covering this news, MG Siegler suggests that this development doesn’t necessarily mean lights out for Gowalla and Foursquare:

“No one is quite sure how well the concept of check-ing-in will work when tacked on to an existing social network.”

This is a reasonable point.  Yelp’s social graph doesn’t reflect real life as accurately as say Facebook’s.  And will people share their location with people who are not their friends in real life?

So far, the answer would appear to be a resounding yes.  A quick look on Twitter search shows that people are already using this feature in droves.

A glimpse at the last two hours of data on Twitter search show about 60 Yelp check-ins – about one every two minutes.  Foursquare is claiming a check-in every second.

But the Yelp data is an enormously understated snapshot of the people actually using the feature – it only includes people that A) that have Twitter accounts; B) people who have synced those Twitter accounts to Yelp; C) people that chose to push the check-in to Twitter (the default is NOT to do this); and D) people that have downloaded the Yelp app update.

My guess is that just 24 hours after pushing this update, Yelp is already may soon be closing in on the check-in volume of Foursquare.  And this is before most Yelp users are even aware of the feature.  There has been no Yelp newsletter sent out announcing the feature, and the only coverage so far seems to be on the tech blogs.  What will Yelp’s check-in volume look like when all 1.25M of its mobile users are aware of the feature?

Besides mapping a lot more connections between Yelp users and venues, this new feature is almost certainly going to drive Yelp a bunch more traffic via its Twitter and Facebook integration.  Expect to see Yelp’s traffic get a nice bounce.

But back to Foursquare and Gowalla.  What can they do to avoid being brute forced out of existence?

Here are a couple of options:

- Go international.  How do you say Mayor in Chinese?
– Push the gameplay angle.  Neither Yelp nor Google seem to have any interest in the game dynamics piece of the puzzle.
– Find a niche and focus all distribution, gameplay, and design on that niche.  check-ins for clubbers.  check-ins for coffee drinkers.  A white label check-in app.

I don’t think I’m exaggerating to say that a change in direction may be required.

And as an aside, there is a fascinating food chain battle going on.  Google, who nearly acquired Yelp a few weeks ago, is putting tremendous pressure on Yelp via it’s new “near me now” feature.  Yelp has pivoted swiftly and has quickly added social location to its own service, in turn putting pressure on Gowalla and Foursquare.  How will these tiny startups respond?

So there you have it.  Yelp has moved quickly and decisively into the social location space, and there is almost certainly a lot of soul searching going on in Austin and New York.

Even more than Facebook or Twitter, I saw Yelp as the single most dangerous competitor in the social location space.  And now they’re here, faster than most people expected.  And everybody else is going to have adjust.

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