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The Battle of Location Based Services

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The digital world is going crazy for location based services, us included, but who’s the front-runner in the competition? Facebook and Foursquare seem to be the biggest contenders, but is that simply due to notoriety? Below we’ve outlined some of our favourites:

Facebook Deals

Only recently introduced to the UK, Facebook Deals is set to crush the competition. Facebook has the benefit of a massive user base. It also has the easiest mechanic – once you check-in a message will be displayed, revealing your redeemable code.

Deals was most famously used by Gap, who gave away free jeans to the first 10,000 people to check-in.

With Deals you can choose one of four options:
- Individual Deals: check in and you get a deal
- Friend Deals: you and a friend check-in and you get joint deals
- Loyalty Deals: check in so many times and you get the deal
- Charity Deals: check-in and the brand donate to a specific charity

The good stuff:
- Ease of use
- Numbers – Facebook has a huge population to work with
- Good for brands without a specific location
- Charity Deals are unique to Facebook and result in positive PR

Foursquare

Foursquare gives an experience somewhere between Facebook Deals and a social gaming platform.

With 6 million users, Foursquare is the current giant of location based services. Offering deals but with a secondary social element of showing you where your friends have checked in and also awards badges like the much coveted Mayor’s badge.

Pepsi and Safeway got together recently to add a new twist. Users could link their VonsClub Card (like a Safeway version of a Nectar Card) to their Foursquare account to unlock PepsiCo rewards – differing depending on the Foursquare badges obtained.

The good stuff:
- Ease of use – really easy to find deals from your current area
- Its experience with branded campaigns
- Already well established
- Good for brands without a specific location

Gowalla

In their words: “Keep up with your friends, share the places you go, and discover the extraordinary in the world around you”.

Before the launch of Facebook Deals this was considered Foursquare’s biggest contender. It was the first major app to offer a social gaming element.

Towards the end of last year, Disneyland Resort teamed up with Gowalla to make the Disneyland experience ‘even more magical’. When checking-in to different areas of the resort, users get a digital passport stamp (below), giving users a virtual scrapbook.

The good stuff:

- Slick user interface
- Fun and ideal for targeting younger users
- Already well established

Scvngr

In their words: “SCVNGR is part awesome location-based mobile game, part really powerful mobile gaming platform”.

SCVNGR presents a fun alternative to location based service. The app lets people unlock rewards for completing challenges.

Coke recently ran a campaign using SCVNGR in the US. In ten malls across the country, shoppers were greeted with a poster (below) inviting them to take part in challenges by searching for hidden experiences involving check-ins and taking photos to earn rewards, which in turn can be converted into items such as AmEx gift cards.

Good for:
- It’s fun; to target younger people a check-in is dull and to a population with a disposable income vouchers aren’t always enough of an incentive
- Content – by challenging participants to take photos you build a pool of content useable on your websites
- As opposed to other social gaming apps there’s still a reward/voucher element

Other notable mentions:

Goldrun: a combined location based service/augmented reality service – see Airwalk’s Invisible Pop-Up Shop.

Chromarama: Not strictly location based but close! Using your Oyster Card, Chromarama sets you challenges and awards points based on where you touch in.


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