Mobile location services set for mainstream uptake

New location services are expected to debut at the SXSW Interactive event

The internet is brimming with location-based services news this week, as the world's largest social networks launch new offerings and the niche players make significant product updates.

The news is all ahead of the South by South West (SXSW) Interactive festival taking place in Austin, Texas over the next two weeks.

SXSW is one of the largest US festivals, and has been focused on emerging technology since 1994. Twitter made its debut there four years ago, and speculation has been mounting that SXSW will be buzzing with geo-location news this year.

Social networks leaking product news to the press, as well as some more concrete announcements, are indicators that this could indeed be the case.

Firstly the giant of social networks, Facebook, is to launch a new location service that will allow users to see the whereabouts of their contacts.

A report in The New York Times today claims that Facebook will launch the service at its developer conference in April, although the firm has been readying itself for the product's potential implications for some time.

Facebook updated its privacy policy a few months ago, stating that, if it launched a location sharing service, users would be presented with an opt-in choice in order to protect their privacy.

The paper cited several people "briefed" on the project as saying that Facebook will soon offer a location service of its own as well as applications created by developers.

In response to the news, a Facebook spokesman said that the company is " constantly experimenting with new ideas and products internally", but would not respond to more specific enquiries.

Twitter, meanwhile, is reported to have tested a new geo-location feature on its web site yesterday.

Although the feature appears now to have been disabled, news site TechCrunch reported seeing a blue marker next to tweets made by mobile users. Hovering over the marker brought up a map of where the tweets were sent from.

Twitter has not responded to questions on why the feature has been turned off and when it plans to launch it officially.

Foursquare, which offers a location-based mobile service, is planning the launch of a product aimed at businesses, according to The New York Times.

Other reports have said that Foursquare will launch an iPhone application, and an update to its History feature.

Foursquare is a social network in the early development stages that is primarily of use to smartphone users. However, the company has received a lot of publicity recently as commentators speculate on its huge potential for growth.

The service allows users to 'check in' to locations when they arrive, such as museums, restaurants and parks, and let their contacts know where they are. The frequency with which they check in gives them points, although Foursquare admits that it does not know how these points will be used.

Foursquare's business offering, meanwhile, will give venue owners more information on their customers though a new dashboard feature that tracks Foursquare users.

The Foursquare History update will mean that a user's history of where they check in will show who they check in with, potentially allowing friendships made on social networks to become more than virtual.

Foursquare rival Gowalla has been relatively quiet in comparison, but moved its application for Android-based handsets out of beta earlier this week.

Gowalla functions in a similar way to Foursquare. The service has similar interfaces, asks users to check in and synchronises with Facebook and Twitter. Both firms will hold parties at SXSW on the same night.

Finally, there are rumours that Google Latitude may integrate with Google Buzz. Latitude lets users allow contacts of their choice to see their location on Google Maps via iGoogle, and Buzz is the firm's new social network offering which carries limited location tools.

Yahoo's Fire Eagle location service has been around for a while, although the company has done little to promote its name in recent weeks in comparison to the newcomers. However, Fire Eagle added synchronisation with Foursquare at the beginning of March.