They're the services turning your physical location into valuable data — and using that data to offer you a variety of services. Love them for their convenience or hate them for their invasion of privacy, geolocation applications are making a big push for your attention.
And after a year of very public privacy failures from services such as Girls Around Me, Highlight and Skout, the industry and consumers are both looking for clear-cut winners. Here's a rundown of three apps that should be on your radar for work, play and travel.
1. Here On Biz: Instant business networking. Think a social LinkedIn check-in that helps you literally find nearby professionals. So now you can network wherever you go. The free iPhone app [iTunes link] shows you nearby people based on their work and interest. Think how valuable this could be when you're at a networking event and don't have a clue who the people are around you.
Founder and CEO Nick Smoot says users include executives from multiple Fortune 500 companies, such as Barclays, Visa and American Express. Last week, Dom Vanarburg, the founder of social share giant AddThis, which boasts 1.3 billion users a month, joined the company as a co-founder.
"There are millions of business men and women around the globe sleeping in hotels and hopping on planes with the primary focus of doing business," says Smoot. "We are analyzing amazing amounts of data about location, job history, affiliations, college degrees, and more to deliver opportunities to connect you with meaningful, pertinent professionals, helping you further your career and grow your inner circle."
2. Tinder: So easy, my Mom uses it, the iPhone "dating app with a difference" is shockingly simple. And shockingly popular. That's because it's an app that basically gamefiies the dating experience. Barely seven months old, roughly 20 million people have caught Tinderitis and been successfully matched.
Here's how it works: Users cycle through photos of potential partners. If they're interested they tap a green heart. Not interested, they hit a red "x." And here's where the app gets beautiful: Potential matches are only notified if both sides are down. When that happens, they're intro'd in a private chat room where it's up to them to see if there's enough chemistry to get things going.
While data on long-term success of relationships started on the app are admittedly sketchy, the service's popularity certainly isn't. Try this one out if you're looking for something more meaningful than, say, Bang With Friends.
3. Waze: Is there anything worse than being stuck in traffic with no way of knowing how long you'll be bumper-to-bumper? If you live in Los Angeles, a traffic capital of the world, like I do, you know the answer is a vehement "no."
What if there were a way to figure out just what's going on on the road, and how to avoid bottleneck traffic? The way is Waze, a GPS navigation app for android and iOS. It's a personal driving doctor that clues you into everything happening on the road: Police, accidents, sudden hazards, traffic, all in real time.
The free app, which was partially inspired by Apple Maps' inefficiency, even offers directions to the nearest and cheapest gas stations around. And it does all this by crowdsourcing from real-time traffic and road conditions based on its 44 million users.