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Geosocial networking is a type of social networking in which geographic services and capabilities such as geocoding and geotagging are used to enable additional social dynamics. [1] [2] User-submitted location data or geolocation techniques can allow social networks to connect and coordinate users with local people or events that match their interests. Geolocation on web-based social network services can be IP-based or use hotspot trilateration. For mobile social networks, texted location information or mobile phone tracking can enable location-based services to enrich social networking.
The evolution of geosocial can be traced back to the implication of social application programming interfaces by internet-based corporations in the early 2000s. eBay uses one of the oldest, announcing its social API at the end of 2000 and allowing free access to over 21,000 developers in late 2005. [3] [4] Amazon's primary API was released in 2002, which allowed developers to pull consumer information like product reviews into third-party applications. [5] Google, Inc. began testing an API in April 2002 and currently owns dozens that are used by thousands of applications. [3] The Facebook Developer's API is considered the first to be specific to a social network and was launched in 2006. Facebook later created an open stream API, allowing outside developers access to user's status updates. [6] By June, 2010, Twitter integrated API into their applications and is considered the most open of all social networks. By 2008, expanded geolocation technologies including cell tower localization became available and devices such as digital cameras and camera phones began to integrate features such as Wi-Fi connectivity and GPS navigation into more sophisticated capabilities.
Geosocial networking allows users to interact relative to their current locations. Web mapping services with geocoding data for places (streets, buildings, and parks) can be used with geotagged information (meetups, concert events, nightclubs or restaurant reviews) to match users with a place, event or local group to socialize in or enable a group of users to decide on a meeting activity. Popular geosocial applications like Yelp, Gowalla, Facebook Places and Foursquare allow users to share their locations as well as recommendations for locations or 'venues'. New applications follow other approaches and do not focus on places. Instead, they allow users to enrich maps with their own points of interest and build kind of travel books for themselves. At the same time users can explore overlays of other users as collaborative extension. [7]
In disaster scenarios, geosocial networking can allow users to coordinate around collaboratively filtered geotag information on hazards and disaster aid activities to develop a collective situational awareness through an assembly of individual perspectives. This type of geosocial networking is known as collaborative mapping. Furthermore, geolocated messages could assist automated tools to detect and track potential dangers for the general public such as an emerging epidemic. [8] [9]
The technology has obvious implications for event planning and coordination. Geosocial has political applications, as it can be used to organize, track, and communicate events and protests. For example, people can use mobile phones and Twitter to quickly organize a protest event before authorities can stop it. People at the event can communicate with each other and the larger world using a mobile device connected to the Internet. Geosocial has the combined potential of bringing a social network or social graph to a location, and having people at a location form into a social network or social graph. Thus social networks can be expanded by real world contact and recruiting new members.
All geosocial networks revolve around specific features that are additional to geolocating.
A mobile ad hoc network is an opt-in group of mobile devices in the same immediate area linked to a master device. These groups are then able to communicate freely with each other. This sort of social networking is used mostly during events so the host (operating the master device) can provide information, suggestions or coupons specific to the event. [10] An example would be Apple's iGroups. [11]
A less-used form of geosocial networking is one mostly used by fast food restaurants, in which customers check-in their orders rather than themselves. Users choose the ingredients of their order, name it, and are awarded points for every order based on their suggestion. Customers are given discounts and coupons for their involvement and the restaurant receives more customers. [12]
Freelancing networks are created with the specific purpose to allow users to find or post temporary employment opportunities. Users establish and operate a professional profile and are able to connect with past and possible employers, employees, colleagues, classmates and friends. [10]
With location-planning, or social-mapping, users are able to search and browse nearby stores, restaurants, etc. Users' venues are assigned profiles and users can rate them, share their opinions and post pictures. These networks use the location of mobile phones to connect users and may also provide directions to and from the venue by linking to a GPS service. [10]
Some networks use moodsourcing as a recreational way to make user's status's seem more similar to personal interaction. In addition to checking in, users convey their current mood with a corresponding emoticon. [10]
Paperless ticketing is a feature that uses smart phones as digital tickets for events and travel. [10] Besides becoming more convenient than the normal ticketing process, Paperless Ticketing eliminates wasteful paper use. Examples include Apple's 2010 purchased patent for a travel ticketing app, ITravel, [13] and Ticketmaster's smart phone application.
Social shopping service users create personal profiles to collect information on different items they find. Instead of simply updating their status on other social networks with a description or link of their purchases, users download software that allows them to grab images of those products to post on their own shopping lists. Some social shopping sites form affiliate relationships with merchants, who often pay percent commissions on sales that come as a result of their products being featured on other sites. [14] Sites have gone so far as to allow users to add their credit card number so their purchases are automatically checked in.
Some fashion corporations have invested in sensors placed in their stores and dressing rooms so users on social shopping applications have to physically be in their store or trying something on in order to gather points. This increases participation and encourages customers to try on other clothes.
Most criminal investigations and news events happen in a geographical location. Geosocial investigation tools provide the ability to source social media from multiple networks (such as Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube) without the use of hashtags or keyword searches. Some vendors provide subscription based services to source real-time and historical social media for events.
Some sites, like Facebook, have been scrutinized for allowing users to "tag" their friends via email while checking in.
An "opt-in" is a permission-based network that requires a user to join or sign up. The host is then given permission to access the user's information and to contact him or her. An "opt-out" network is defaulted to have the user included in a group. Users must remove themselves from the network if they wish to not be included.
The social web is a set of social relations that link people through the World Wide Web. The social web encompasses how websites and software are designed and developed in order to support and foster social interaction. These online social interactions form the basis of much online activity including online shopping, education, gaming and social networking services. The social aspect of Web 2.0 communication has been to facilitate interaction between people with similar tastes. These tastes vary depending on who the target audience is, and what they are looking for. For individuals working in the public relation department, the job is consistently changing and the impact is coming from the social web. The influence held by the social network is large and ever changing.
In computing, Internet geolocation is software capable of deducing the geographic position of a device connected to the Internet. For example, the device's IP address can be used to determine the country, city, or ZIP code, determining its geographical location. Other methods include examination of Wi-Fi hotspots, a MAC address, image metadata, or credit card information.
The term mobile commerce was originally coined in 1997 by Kevin Duffey at the launch of the Global Mobile Commerce Forum, to mean "the delivery of electronic commerce capabilities directly into the consumer’s hand, anywhere, via wireless technology." Many choose to think of Mobile Commerce as meaning "a retail outlet in your customer’s pocket."
Bing for mobile is a search tool for handheld mobile devices from Microsoft as part of their Bing search engine. It is designed for mobile device displays. Bing Mobile is built into Windows Mobile and Windows Phone as proprietary software, accessed via the Search key on Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 devices. It is also available on Windows Phone 8.1, and can be downloaded for other platforms, including and Android.
Mobile social networking is social networking where individuals with similar interests converse and connect with one another through their mobile phone and/or tablet. Much like web-based social networking, mobile social networking occurs in virtual communities.
The Facebook Platform is the set of services, tools, and products provided by the social networking service Facebook for third-party developers to create their own applications and services that access data in Facebook.
Real-time geotagging refers to the automatic technique of acquiring media, associating a specific location with the media, transferring the media to an online map and publishing the media in real time. It is thus an extension of an automatic geotagging process, requiring an in-built or attached location acquisition device, but also requires communication with a wireless data transfer device. Most modern smartphones and several digital cameras already integrate camera, aGPS, and wireless data transfer into one device, thus directly producing a geotagged photograph. Real-time geotagging is sometimes referred to as "mobile geotagging" or "autogeotagging", but this does not imply the real-time publishing step.
Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design language. Unlike Windows Mobile, it was primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market.
A software widget is a relatively simple and easy-to-use software application or component made for one or more different software platforms.
The W3C Geolocation API is an effort by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to standardize an interface to retrieve the geographical location information for a client-side device. It defines a set of objects, ECMAScript standard compliant, that executing in the client application give the client's device location through the consulting of Location Information Servers, which are transparent for the application programming interface (API). The most common sources of location information are IP address, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth MAC address, radio-frequency identification (RFID), Wi-Fi connection location, or device Global Positioning System (GPS) and GSM/CDMA cell IDs. The location is returned with a given accuracy depending on the best location information source available.
Brightkite was a location-based social networking website. Users were able to "check in" at places by using text messaging or one of the mobile applications and they were able to see who is nearby and who has been there before. The service was created in 2007 by Brady Becker, Martin May, and Alan Seideman who previously founded the SMS notification service Loopnote. In April 2009 Brightkite was acquired by mobile social network Limbo.
The BOLT Browser was a web browsing system for mobile phones including feature phones and smartphones able to run Java ME applications. The BOLT browser was installed on the phone, and BOLT servers accessed Web pages, processed and compressed them, and delivered them to phones running the browser. The BOLT Browser was offered free of charge to consumers, and by license to mobile network operators and handset manufacturers. BOLT was produced by Bitstream Inc., the company which previously produced ThunderHawk for mobile network operators and handset manufacturers. BOLT was originally introduced into private beta on January 15, 2009 and was made available to the public on February 16, 2009 when the public beta was announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. BOLT supported Java-based handsets with Java MIDP 2 and CLDC 1.0 or higher. BOLT also has specially optimized version for BlackBerry smartphones and worked with Windows Mobile and Palm OS devices that employ a MIDlet manager or Java emulator. BOLT was built using the WebKit rendering engine to display a full Web page layout as found on desktop web browsers.
Gowalla is a location-based social networking service. It originally launched in 2007 and closed in 2012, but was relaunched on March 10, 2023. Users are able to check in at "Spots" in their local vicinity, either through a dedicated mobile application or through the mobile website. Checking-in will sometimes produce virtual "items" for the user, some of which are developed to be promotional tools for the game's partners. As of November 2010 there were approximately 600,000 users. In January 2021, Gowalla made an announcement that the app is coming back in 2022.
Plazes AG was a Berlin, Germany-based geosocial networking site. Plazes allowed users to post their location and current activities and share this information with other Plazes users via computers or mobile telephones. On 23 June 2008, Nokia Corporation announced plans to acquire Plazes. Plazes was subsequently integrated to Nokia Maps which itself was integrated to HERE Maps.
Koprol, since 25 May 2010 called Yahoo Koprol, was an Indonesian social networking service, allowing users to connect based on location. Mobile users can use the site as a positioning service, without the need for a GPS receiver. Once logged in, users can see other members who were in nearby location.
GyPSii is a provider of geosocial networking applications and services for the iPhone, iPod, iPad, BlackBerry OS, Android and Java-based phones, Symbian S60 and S40, Windows Mobile and MID notebooks. The company is headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands, with offices in Asia and the United States.
Microsoft mobile services are a set of proprietary mobile services created specifically for mobile devices; they are typically offered through mobile applications and mobile browser for Windows Phone platforms, BREW, and Java. Microsoft's mobile services are typically connected with a Microsoft account and often come preinstalled on Microsoft's own mobile operating systems while they are offered via various means for other platforms. Microsoft started to develop for mobile computing platforms with the launch of Windows CE in 1996 and later added Microsoft's Pocket Office suite to their Handheld PC line of PDAs in April 2000. From December 2014 to June 2015, Microsoft made a number of corporate acquisitions, buying several of the top applications listed in Google Play and the App Store including Acompli, Sunrise Calendar, Datazen, Wunderlist, Echo Notification Lockscreen, and MileIQ.
Windows Phone 7 is the first release of the Windows Phone mobile client operating system, released worldwide on October 21, 2010, and in the United States on November 8, 2010. It runs on the Windows CE 6.0 kernel.
Mozilla Location Service (MLS) is an open geolocation service which allows devices to find their position by processing their received signals of publicly observable radio transmitters: cellular network antennae, Wi-Fi access points, and Bluetooth beacons. The service is provided by Mozilla since 2013. The service uses Mozilla's open source software project called Ichnaea.
Geomessaging is a technology that allows a person or system to send a message based on any media to a device that enters or exits one or more regions. Those regions can be created by using geofences, based on Latitude and Longitude, or adding beacons to the system associating those beacons with named locations. The device will receive the message according to the rules defined by the campaign administrator.