uber.la

One thing you really ought to know about these days is Twitter. Now, it's not because Twitter is good for you, or makes you smarter or can accelerate your business growth. And it's not that Twitter is new or revolutionary. But you "ought" to know about Twitter because everyone's doing it, and you'd better start doing it at some point or be left behind. Or… On second thought, perhaps it's really okay if you don't know about Twitter at all. Don't care about it? Fine.

So now that we've established that Twitter is optional, here's something you ought to know about Twitter.

Twitter is about REAL TIME with REAL PEOPLE.  So let's get GEO.

The New York Times has a piece on SXSW today: South by Southwest’s Location-Based Allure and another one: Telling Friends Where You Are (or Not)

And last night the local paper AAS gave their 2nd annual Texas Social Media Award to local geo-darling Gowalla. Even though Foursquare appears to be kicking Gowalla to the curb according to the GEOWARS page setup by SXSWTWITS. No matter.

So what's wrong with geo-locating apps? Nothing. In theory, our GPS-aware phones can do miraculous things. The phone knows where we are at all times. And unfortunately for my iPhone-weary friends, that GPS locating takes a significant amount of battery life. But, aside from that, the geo in geo-location apps is not really a big issue.

What IS a big issue is how the geo-location apps are set up as default to self-promote their services everytime one of their followers "checks in." And here's a sample of the *joy* you can have when your friends begin using gowalla or 4sq.

• I'm at Vespaio (1610 S Congress Ave, W Milton St, Austin) w/ 3 others. http://4sq.com/52WjZs
• I'm at Middle Earth (302 – 310 Water St, Cambie, Vancouver). http://4sq.com/9XMGz9
• I just unlocked the "Porky" badge on @foursquare! http://4sq.com/aGnj1N
• I'm at Morishita Station in Tokyo http://gowal.la/s/4BZg
• I'm at Frost Bank Tower in Austin, TX http://gowal.la/s/3K5

So I suppose if you are trying to find the *action* this might be one way of doing it. Or if you are social famous and trying to create a FLASH MOB, these tools might be good. But what they do it create oh so many updates that contain nothing of value to anyone not associate with said tweeters. I mean, can I filter OUT all the 4sq or gowal.la updates completely? (Not yet? Well, someone get to work on that would ya? Jeeze!)

So in geo-locating yourself the idea is you are calling in your peeps to join you. But as events go, or SATURDAY nights for that matter, I would guess the information is not that interesting to people who are over a hundred miles from your geo-ass. It's the equivalent of the earliest days of twitter in 2006 when we were all tweeting things like, "We're going to get coffee after pizza at Angie's. Meet us there!" But it's the same logic. It's a stream of data, or lifestream, that has no REAL in it. Sure, it's WHERE YOU ARE AT, but that's only marginally important to the rest of the world. Unless you think it's more important, let me know. (And I know some of you will, and that's cool, I'm asking for it.)

So if you are looking to geo-locate yourself at SXSW this year, may I suggest my favorite SITBY.US. What's different about this service is it uses Twitter without any additional registrations. It is focused on the event and timing of the events within the event. And it actually helps you find friends you know in real time or want to meet from virtual relationships, and it locates them inside a single narrow slice of time and allows them to not only sign-in to the room, but also show where in the room they are sitting. Thus allowing people to sit together in real time, using a virtual tool in the virtual world. (Oh hell, I forgot to sign out of the Visual Note Taking Panel… just a sec.)

T the little square icon before my name shows you exactly where I am sitting. I did go ahead and check out. And here's what the screen looks like when you "check-in."

So if you are looking for me tomorrow, the last day of SXSW Interactive, don't bother with my Plancast profile or the my.sxsw.com page. Cause I don't use them. The interface and simplicity of Sitby.us has captured my event check-in space. And I am telling you, I don't "check-in" in the Gowalla sense.

To me, Geo-Locating apps are like tellin you what I'm "fixin to do," rather than doin it and lettin you know what I'm doin. And yes I will admit to saying YES and MAYBE on a lot of Facebook events, cause I don't want to deny anything I might go to. Even if I'm not in the same country. But that's Facebook. Whatever!

So somehow Mr. Gowalla himself won the Texas Social Media Awards. And I'm sure he checked-in and checked-out for that event last night. But I hope he kept the "I am at…" tweet to himself.

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/go-geo

SXSW 2010 posts from earlier:

• Smile Today in ATX: Penultimate Day at #SXSW 2010 (updating along the way)
• Sustainability and Social Media: A Year Later at #SXSW (Dell≠Green?)
• Another Winding Down at SXSW: Social Media Club HOUSE at Dusk #smch3
• #SXSW Rockstar SuperPowers Now Available in Austin, Texas (jetpacks optional)

Here's the latest TwitterVenn diagram:

Click here to run it yourself with up-to-the-second Twitter data.

Tags: foursquare, geo-hell, geo-location, geo-location fun, geo-location hell, geo-location now, geowars, gowalla, gps-enabled, I am at, interactive, interactive conference, must be more positive, my.sxsw.com, real people, real time, sitby.us, social media, sorry facebook sucks, south by southwest, sxsw, sxsw 2009, sxsw 2010, sxswi, Texas Social Media Awards, where in the geo are you, why your UX sucks, your geo-ass