businessinsider.com — Google has put Marissa Mayer in charge of location services, which suggests that Google is finally taking location seriously. That's good.
Now Google needs to write a check for Foursquare, before it's too late.
Google missed the social revolution. Google should buy Twitter to address this problem, but Twitter has gotten so huge and self-sufficient that it would take an absolutely monster check to pry it loose. Google may end up buying Twitter anyway, down the road, when Twtter is ready to sell to someone, but by then the acquisition could cost tens of billions of dollars (or nothing, depending
Oct 16, 2010 View in Crawl 4
ihavetoblogOct 17, 2010
No one wants other people to know where they are ... it is part of the whole privacy thing. And no one wants other people to tag them in places, which is why FB's location service isn't going crazy.
I can't explain the pull towards twitter or why it grew the way it did... if google wants to compete, make it so you maintain privacy and not the google BUZZ fiasco
or they can buy my site off me !
charlotte_webOct 17, 2010
On the contrary, tons of people want to share their personal business and tell everyone the mundane details of their lives. Despite the preaching of the privacy advocates on the internet during the 90's and the earlier part of 2000's, sites and technologies that were alarming to the paranoid actually took of and were wildly successful.
Geocities/Angelfire -> tons of sites where people were posting their life stories
Blogger -> People telling the day-to-day details of their lives
Flickr -> Everyone posting their personal photos for the world to see
Friendster/MySpace -> Could be closed to only friends list, but people built huge lists of strangers anyway (and MySpace corp was privvy to everything)
Facebook -> MySpace clone that now allows you to log in everywhere, giving Facebook a trail of websites that you visit every day
Twitter -> divulging personal daily details made even easier
Foursquare -> We don't want to just know what you did during the day, we want to track you throughout the day and know where you are at any given time
Social networking has momentum; there are a LOT of folks out there who believe it's business savvy to dive into these websites as they pop up head first, and privacy be damned.
ihavetoblogOct 18, 2010
Here is where your logic fails.
People used to snail-mail pics of their families via christmas cards or packets to let other family members in far off places know what everyone was up to. Now they just use FLICKR or the like.
People used to write letters first, then they called, followed by emails, and now blogs to tell their tales. No more stamps or telephone bills ... You have an online scrap book that anyone you choose can read.
Twitter is a new phenomenon caused by Gen Y .. the SMS generation, which is why it has taken off. People are used to the 140 character relay of their mundane activities in their lives..
Social networking, for all intensive purposes, is a rehash of old world activities in a digital form. Notice how in all these aspects, the creator maintains control of his creation .. except with geotagging, 4square, and the FB app where other people can tag you when you never wanted to be tagged to begin with.
there lies the failure... when the creator loses control of the creation
hipmanOct 17, 2010
Uh, thanks nobody.I don't think Google needs your advice.
eeldarbOct 17, 2010
Crowly is never going to sell to Google again after what happened with Dodgeball.
corezzOct 17, 2010
Ok think about it....Foursquare is just a slightly tweaked version of Dodgeball which Google bought back in the day. Dodgeball closed shop even despite its initial buzz on par with Foursquare's hype today. And yet here we are again. And incidentally Dogeball and Foursquare were made by the same person.
Fool me once....
levancharlyOct 17, 2010
I don't get it really, one day people are so mad because of privacy on Facebook, then the next day they use foursquare to check-in and tell the world where they are exactly!! then after Facebook creates "places" app. people get mad about privacy again and at last Google with all its coders can't make a similar app. like foursquare or Gowalla and they are talking about buying it for 1 billion+! seriously?!!
lphchldOct 18, 2010
Poorly written article.
>.<