Local: The Last Explosive Mile of Social

While we are witnessing a global explosion of all things social the real “catch” will be local.

I used the word “catch” to imply the next activities from the human network when local social catches on.

There are many developments which will enable “local social” to be the tipping point of further changes to market dynamics and increased value for the human network.

While new technology will enable local to be the next explosive growth in all things social the real value will come from what people discover from use of the technology and how it adds value to productivity, both personal and professional. Improving productivity is the backbone of any economy. After all the global economy trickles up and down based on the behavior of local transactions.

Emerging Technologies are Pointing to Local

Early we discussed the implications of Four Square as a logical step towards all things social locally. Post titled “A 4 Square Economy”. When you really think about the power of “social networks” that build real value it is the people you connect with on-line as well as off line. Off line is local where most all things truly social in our life evolve around.

Applications such as Brightkite, Foursquare, Gowala and Yelp are examples of finding places of interest. Apps like  Checkin Mania allows you to see places of interest from all four services side-by-side.

Checkin Mania is based on Google Maps,  their site (here), you can enter a location and then see places of interest offered by all the above mentioned services. What next? Google Maps for Social Media?

Mobile adds to such schemes and when you consider the convergence of all things on-line to all things mobile then the logical conclusion is that all things are more than likely about to change yet again. Google, Apple and Facebook are aggressively pursuing the convergence of all things social, mobile and funneling them into “local” relevancy.

What Does All This Mean?

Consider what is happening around you locally. You work, play, shop and socialize. What if those activities were enhanced by being able to do such things more productivity and in association with people of common interest or knowledge?  What would happen if you can discover that the knowledge you seek to solve business and personal problems was right around the corner?  If you were able to access such associations productively you would enhance  local productivity and business exchanges. After all, it is a ground up and not top down relationship economy.

All this means is that you need to start thinking differently about how you market your business. While the internet is large and can be confusing the technological advancements will make it small and relevant. Google has ranked sites based on the relevance to a particular keyword or phrase. Now we are starting to see Google giving more prominence to information that is relevant based on other factors, location.

Local is more relevant. As stated, local is where most of the actions and transactions are. Not recognizing how the internet is shifting to local means you and your business will miss the action and transactions.

Emerging Human Discoveries are Enhancing Human Productivity

Given the growing number of players now jumping into geo-location services it’s just a matter of time before the Facebooks and Twitters of the world start to focus on adding value locally. But the real winners in the pursuit of “local social” just may not be the current large networks rather it may simply be the individual businesses and people.

If you look at how people are using the applications above you will find a common result, improved productivity. Productivity in terms of finding the right people, products, processes and knowledge needed to find solutions for satisfying business and personal challenges in real-time. Human productivity adds value to business productivity. Productivity improves when new knowledge is made available to solve common problems.

Technological advances will fuel opportunities to improve productivity. What people discover and create with these advancements is beyond our current imagination.

Tagged as: Behavior, business, facebook, Foursquare, global economy, global explosion, google, google maps, human, improving productivity, knowledge, line, location, logical conclusion, Mania, maps, market dynamics, media mobile, network, Pointing, shop, social, technology, use, Yelp