Location Location Location

I used to be in the business of presence and awareness along with chat and collaboration. Back then, we used to think about intelligent notifications and delivering interesting and useful information to people rather than having to search through massive amounts of data. I loved that concept because it was a great way to sift through the junk and differentiate the signal from the noise.

These days, location has become a lot more interesting because of the inclusion of GPS technology on mobile devices. All of a sudden, we are using apps like FourSquare on our phones to checkin and receive badges and coupons for businesses that are close to us. The other day, I even received a text on my phone from Papa Johns close to where I was. If I happened to be hungry for pizza at the time, this would have been a great thing (as it was, I wasn’t hungry and it was highly annoying).

So where are we headed with location? It seems like this is wide-open territory, especially as people start to replace traditional PCs with devices like an iPad 3G where you will always be connected and have access to location information. I wonder if this will create new types of collaborative opportunities. Or maybe advertising (this is obvious as it’s already happening). Maybe there will be apps that do things like collective rating of local businesses. I like this because it is a nice way to filter through the massive amount of information on the Internet and deliver to you (the user) data that is most pertinent to you, based on your location. That’s good stuff.