Facebook Places, Gowalla and Foursquare

What is the next big thing? Location base service and application is one of those, like Gowalla, or the newly announced Facebook Places.

Gowalla is a location base community website. When I first heard of Gowalla is when I meet DC about 2 months ago. DC show me the Gowalla iPhone application. What Gowalla do is, when you come to a new spot (or new places), you take a picture of it, put some comment, check in, the website will record that you have been here before.

This type of location base application is not new, there are dozens (or may be hundreds) or similar application available. But LBS application on iPhone is new, LBS on Facebook is new.

Foursquare is like Gowalla, you can check-in a place with foursquare, find your friends nearby. Foursquare came with something call tips, the idea is not new, but how they do it is good.

Tips gave you some ideas what you can do nearby. A good example is restaurant tips, gave you some ideas what to eat for meal. Tips are share by the community, you can drop your tips at check-in point.

Both Gowalla and Foursquare not just community, they make community into a game as well, a live game. You collect points and badge by check-in new place or spot. LBS technology has become more matured with online map service and more GPS mobile smart phones like iPhone. Gowalla and Foursquare are just the beginning, I am expecting more LBS application and games in the future.