Mobile services like Loopt and Google’s Latitude have promoted the notion of constantly beaming your location to a map that is visible to a network of friends — an idea that is not for everybody. But now there is a different approach, one that is being popularized by Foursquare. After firing up the Foursquare application on their phones, users see a list of nearby bars, restaurants and other places, select their location and “check in,” sending an alert to friends using the service. This model gives people more choice in revealing their locations. Since it was introduced a year ago, Foursquare has swelled to more than 500,000 users. It now has 1.6 million check-ins a week. One of the drawbacks to the check-in model, as opposed to constant tracking, is that people have to remember to use a service.
Read more at the New York Times.
