Generally when you visit a new place, you recommend it to your friends so that they can also check it out.  But first of all you can’t tell it to all of your friends and also it is very tough to share all good and the bad experience with them.

Will not it be good if you can leave it to them to explore themselves and when they are at the same place you were before, they know what you recommended or not recommended.  When they are at the same place, they know about the things you recommended and so on and so forth.

Location aware apps are becoming very popular these days.  Go out, Discover and share with your friends about the new places in the city you are exploring.  With these apps you can share your experience right when you are there and that recommendation will always remain on that place.  So that other people who are visiting that place know what others have to say.

Similar is the motto of some of these apps/services mentioned below.  They let you share your location with your friends (on twitter & Facebook) and add tips about the places you visit.  In the process you earn some incentives yourself as mentioned below:

  1. Foursquare: Foursquare is a most popular app/service when it comes to location sharing.  There has been crazy buzz about this service and by far from my personal experience has the best set of features.
    When you walk-in to a place, all you have to do is open Foursqare app on your mobile device (iPhone, Android or Blackberry).  The app automatically recognizes the place along with some other nearby spots, select the choice of place and hit check-in.  Based on your settings, you location is shared on Twitter, Facebook and other Foursquare users.

    When you check-in to a place on Foursqare a set number of times, you become the Mayor of that place. (An incentive that shows that you are a patron).  While checking-in, you can add comments, tips and other things you wanna do when you come next time.  When other users check-in to this place, they see that you were here and along side they see what you have suggested about this place.
    The game doesn’t end here.  Other benefits you get are the badges which you receive when you have done something N number of times.  Like 25 checkins at 25 different places gets you a badge, when you become mayor of 10+ places at the same time you get a SuperMayor badge and things like that.  After a while it actually becomes lot of fun to earn badges and become Mayor of the places you frequently visit.
    You can add me as a friend and check out my Foursqare profile.
  2. Brightkite: Brightkite is a similar service and in my opinion the first one to create a service like that.  But they somehow couldn’t provide any incentive to the users for their location sharing.  You can share images with this service while sharing the location and can talk to other Brightkite users.  Brightkite supposedly has the most exact address of any location in its database as compared to Foursquare and Gowalla.
  3. Gowalla: Gowalla is also a similar service and they also provide some rewards.  You can keep collecting virtual items on the Go. But the funda is the same.  I have had some difficulty finding the exact spot matching on Gowalla.  But you may have different experience.
  4. Check.in: With the rise of these check in services, if you want to control all of them without installing too many apps but still wants to earn rewards on all these services.  Then Check.in is a service to rule them all.  They don’t yet have an actual iPhone app but you can create a bookmark of the Safari interface which works almost as an app.  With this interface you can check in to the above three services at the same time.  Really cool.

Well, now the use of location sharing services is on the rise, it also comes at the cost of privacy.  Because if you check in somewhere then it means you are not home.  So make sure you don’t share your home address, else you might be inviting some unnecessary trouble your way.  And be considerate what you share.  Do not share the address of a location you don’t want other people to know about.  Like your girl friends house, your house address, your other friends locations etc.

Though it is fun collecting all these rewards, badges and mayorships, but you can go [Off the grid] if you choose not to share your location to other yet still earn rewards.  Have fun but remember that the location sharing comes at the cost of privacy.

Let us know how do you like these apps and service and if you had fun using them.  What are the concerns that come to your mind while you were using them.  Lets us hear in comments.  Is it some kind of fun while being useful or is it a major privacy concern?

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