Apparently folks in my neighborhood find it necessary to buzz about flatulence which also affects their spelling

For more details you can read this post I found that provides more info as well.

However, there is a sneaky workaround you can use to find out exactly what’s Buzzing in your local area without having to use a compatible mobile phone. It works by tricking your browser into loading the mobile version of Buzz. You can do this by logging into your Google account and then going to the following URL: https://m.google.com/app/buzz?force=1#~buzz:view=me

via The Next Web – How to browse Google Buzz on a map without a mobile phone

Earlier this week a site called Pleaserobme.com was launched making fun of and bringing awareness to privacy and security concerns of using location-based apps. Along with that came an article by TechCrunch posting about the Most Stalker-Friendly person on Gowalla, which at the time before Gowalla investors Kevin Rose and Jason Calacanis decided to update their friends list was me. Even before that, one of my unofficial mentors Andrew Hyde had posted an article called Committing Location Based Service Suicide where he’s giving up location-based apps.

Since then, Brightkite and FourSquare have blogged about practicing safe check-in. TriOut another location-based service for NC only had also posted an article called TriOut and Your Privacy (disclosure: I’m a partner with TriOut). You can read each post via the link below:

• Brightkite: Practicing safe check-in
• Foursquare: On foursquare, location & privacy…
• TriOut: TriOut and Your Privacy

There are at least 17 other location-based social networks available and it will be interesting to see if and how they will respond to conversations around sites like pleaserobme.com and the growing debate on privacy. Also there’s an article on Read Write Web called: Congress to Hold Hearing on Location Data and Privacy: Today’s Top Stories on Geolocation. So it’s not just the geeks/tech community but it’s something that even government is”checking into”.

Since TechCrunch wants to call Gowalla users or users who use similar apps “stalker friendly” my advice for people using location-based services are simple.

• Don’t check-in at places where you don’t want to be bothered or “stalked”
• Don’t check-in at home or family locations
• Don’t accept every friend request, especially from people you don’t know or trust
• Read the privacy policies of each location-based social network
• Adjust your profile privacy settings on the social network and/or mobile app.
• Use common sense

Personally I have seen a huge value in location-based services from meeting new friends to business opportunities, especially at conferences and in my local community. I do believe privacy is very important but using some of the tips above and more, you should have no worries and that home is safe.

Do you use location-based apps? If so why or why not and how concerned about privacy are you?

Last week Gowalla announced the release of their API. This is a huge step in making sure they stay on pace and within reach of current check in rival Foursquare. Beyond having a solid product that gains user adoption, the next most important aspect of any new web service nowadays is to release an API. Twitter is a prime example of this as many have pointed to their API as being the catalyst that created the huge marketplace for 3rd party apps and integration. Once developers start to release innovative ways to tap a core service via its API and further attract users a snowball effect is created. That’s primarily why Twitter beat out so many comparable, if not better, micro-blogging platforms that launched to compete against it.

Foursquare only announced their API a few months back in November of 2009 and I haven’t seen too many implementations out there that are compelling. This bodes well for Gowalla which now is in a position to watch if developers can help catapult their service to the next level. On the Gowalla blog they made sure to plant a seed with ideas for how others could start building apps around their API.

Here are those ideas:

• The Gowalla API enables tons of fun stuff. Here are a few free ideas:
• Indiana Jones Map — Convert your road trip into an animated, epic adventure.
• Sidebar Badge — Show off your top ten spots with a sidebar badge for your blog.
• Conference Games — Encourage conference attendees to explore the city and get to know each other by tracking their check-ins and rewarding those who get off the beaten path.
• LunchVote — Can’t agree with your co-workers on a lunch spot? Stuck in a rut with the same five restaurants? Use LunchVote to decide on a nearby restaurant and track your history.
• Gowallahashing — Inspired by XKCD’s Geohashing, algorithmically pick a random spot every day for a given area, to encourage serendipitous challenges and meetups.

You can read the rest of the announcement via the Gowalla blog.

Read more on Andrew’s post about the comic here

While the comic is clearly funny, the reality is that because we now have several different location based apps each of them filling different niches with different groups of our friends on them, this situation can often be the case for many people. I currently find myself determining which apps to checkin with depending on the type of location. If it’s a restaurant then it’s definitely Yelp as well as Brightkite and or Foodspotting to snap photos of what I’m eating. If it’s a more social location like an event, or bar then I’m checking in using Foursquare or Gowalla both to broadcast that I’m at the location, as well as to find other friends that are there.

As more apps will likely join the fray this year it will become even more complicated. I half-joked a while back that I now need an app to cross-post to multiple checkin services. Think Ping.fm but for location based services. I would actually really like that right now and hope someone is working on it.

Image courtesy of Gowalla Twitpic account (click to view)

Josh Followed up the Gowalla tweet with one of his own

He followed up that tweet with one stating that “To be clear, m.gowalla.com does not work on BB yet, but will very soon. Stay tuned!”.

No word on a release date but this should make many folks who feel neglected very happy. I also couldn’t help noticing that Josh appears to have a Nerf Gun on the ready. Perhaps he should up the ante and peruse the list of Wired’s “Dangerous Office Objects”.

In walk Foursquare and Gowalla, way later. They have cute badges or stickers, they game their users into chasing a point structure, they even found a way to throw a biscuit at you for frequenting places (Foursquare’s promotion of local businesses & offering special to mayors of places, for example).

Dandy. I’m not interested, and in true Scoble fashion, “here’s why”.

I can appreciate the approach these websites are taking, and I can understand their interest in creating a game to keep their users becoming lemmings over retrieving points, badges and mayor statuses. I can understand their motivation, from a business aspect, why the incentives for “frequent place visitors” is important for revenue. But in the end? It’s a cattle coral to get you to chase down places, check in to them, share a tip, and hopefully score some imaginary thing and have it put an icon on your account. Where’s the community value?

What’s wrong with Foursquare:

1. It’s a coupon machine
2. It’s a game
3. It doesn’t support community
4. You can’t find people near you
5. The mobile web-interface is absolutely terrible

What’s wrong with GoWalla:

1. It’s a “sticker” machine.. for digital pack-rats it looks like.
2. The UX is awkward
3. iPhone and Android only? Next…
4. Have you seen their mobile interface?
5. It’s way too “cute” to take seriously
6. You can’t find people near you
7. It doesn’t support community

Yelp provides an LBS, I believe… This, I haven’t played with but I definitely will.

Why BrightKite?

In a word. People. It’s about us. It’s about finding those you know. It’s about connecting when you’re out and about. You could check in at a pub, have a friend check in four doors down, get a notification, and shoot a text, “I’m around the corner from you, let’s meet up and grab a beer!” or whatever.

Additionally there are services attached like the photo-sharing experience which is repetitive of say, Tweetphoto and TwitPic, but at the same time – LBS’s should have photos of locations, this allows us to preview what it looks like before we even go. Check out the atmosphere… That’s sort of important. More so than say… Who the mayor is, or what some random person you don’t know said about their pesto.

I want GPS powered apps for Maemo or S60 to roll around. I won’t get in to why I will never, in a gazillion years, own an iProduct. I’ve ranted about that enough. I do, however, understand that since I’m in a 2% minority in the United States with my Nokia preference, so that’ll probably never happen.

All it would take for Foursquare to be better than Brightkite is to ditch the stupid game, become community/people-centric, leave the “business” layer intact, and let people post photos… to name a few.

All it would take for Brightkite to be better would be to be more business centric, in that it needs to accept business names to be coupled with addresses, if applicable… that’s pretty much it.

Truth be told, I could live without any changes to Brightkite. I like to share where I’m at, find out if anyone I know is near-by, and show people what it looks like where I be. If the pesto rocks? I’ll post a note. I don’t need to be the damned mayor or some place and get a cookie dangled at me on my phone for it. I don’t need a badge, I don’t need a sticker. I like community, I want community, and LBS, for me? Is about the people. Simple as that.

I do this sometimes and often feel I’m tweeting in the darkness as I don’t hear any trees falling down. But that was not the case on this given evening. Alexia Tsotsis took my lob and fired off the beginning of a tweet volley stating “If you ain’t first you’re last. Foursquare already won.” which I totally disagreed with and it sparked quite a debate between the two of us.

I don’t think I’ve ever debated something this vehemently on Twitter with anyone before. I partly credit Alexia and this discussion as another reason that prompted me to create this site and I thought it was worthy of sharing. It shall be interesting watch things progress in the Checkin space to see which one of us has to eat our proverbial words at the end of the day.

With the current rumor about Facebook working on a Foursquare killer, I’m gonna offer up Alexia some seasoning salt so she can start preparing her meal.

So I quickly got the app and started checking in all over the place but when I went to visit my profile on the website, nary a single peep from any of my checkins was to be seen.

I found this pretty sad and have been hoping that it’s just because Yelp felt they had to rush a mobile app out there because if they don’t integrate that data into the website I think it will be  a huge mistake.

Well there’s some signs that this may have been the case. Here’s a story from Mashable on the addition of Checkins to user reviews.

Here’s a snip

Today, Yelp’s expanding the feature to include check-in information alongside user reviews on its website. With that small step, you can see exactly why check-ins are such a big deal for Yelp (Yelp), and a big threat to upstarts like Foursquare (Foursquare) and Gowalla (Gowalla). We’re told that Yelp just passed nine million reviews, and now, with the ability to connect check-in data to individual reviews, the company is hoping to add further credibility to its users’ ratings.

While this is a nice step in the right direction I don’t feel it’s nearly enough. I want to see all my friends checkins on the site regardless of whether they reviewed the location. I hope this is just the beginning of Yelp’s integration and they continue bringing many more in the near future.

via Yelp Brings Location Check-in Data to Its Web Review | Mashable

Here’s a snip

A source briefed on the matter tells us Facebook is working on a feature that will allow users who access the network from mobile devices to “check-in” and broadcast their current location to all their friends.

The story goes on to say

For his part, Foursquare cofounder Dennis Crowley told us he fully expects Facebook and others to launch “check-in” functionality, making it “commodity by the end of the year.”

Dennis says Foursquare’s survival depends on providing “the most incentive for a user to check-in.” Right now, Foursquare awards frequent users badges and calls the users who check-in at certain venues the most “mayor.”

“I think we’re doing this better than anyone else and I think we’ll continue to do so. We have so much stuff on the whiteboard that we haven’t even touched yet… we’re really just getting started.”

The story also discusses rivals in the space Yelp and Gowalla along with advantages and disadvantages from each of them and stating potential rivalries from Twitter and CitySearch may come as well.

via Facebook Is Working On A Foursquare-Killer | Business Insider

I feel the space is still in its early infancy and we’re in for a lot more innovation and competition still to come. I, along with many others, feel that this will be one of the hottest sectors in tech over the coming year and even further out. So I created this website for many of the same reasons I created Lifestream Blog. What’s happening in the Checkin space is new and exciting for me and has lit a fire that I haven’t seen since stumbling onto Lifestreaming. That’s the motivation I got that prompted me to create the site.

I struggled a bit deciding whether I wanted to do this as I don’t want to spread myself to thin and will still continue to actively run Lifestream Blog. So I’m looking to for other users who are also having fun and participating with these services to help contribute by writing posts for the site. There are so many different devices and apps that will surely be available that I want to highlight many other voices and opinions here. I really think we’re going to see some innovative things happen in the near future and I look forward to discovering them with you.

If you are interested in writing for Checkin Blog you can use the contact form to send me an email or contact me a on Twitter, Skype, AIM, or Google Talk. I look forward to hearing from you.