Location-based apps such as Foursquare and Gowalla are great, but do you really want to know where your friends are—all of the time? Probably not. Banjo provides a useful solution: The app lets you specify a radius for the notifications you receive and alerts you when your friends are within that radius. READ MORE
Targeting online marketing campaigns geographically is about to get easier: HootSuite has just acquired Geotoko, a company that runs location-based marketing campaigns. Geotoko’s co-founders will come on board: Rasheed Akhtar will join HootSuite as director of Local and Adarsh Pallian will be director of Apps and Integration. Geotoko lets users manage location-based campaigns across a host of social networking platforms, including Facebook, Foursquare, and Gowalla. READ MORE
According to a new study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 55 percent of smartphone owners use their devices for some sort of location services. But before you rush to proclaim this the Era of Foursquare, keep this in mind: the study’s definition of “location services” is pretty loose, says ReadWriteWeb’s John Paul Titlow. READ MORE
