Foursquare and the impact of an information revolution on privacy

Some time ago I decided to continue my experiment with FourSquare without hitting the 'share with Facebook' or 'share with Twitter' buttons.

I didn't want to irritate those who chose to follow my tweets, for example, but hadn't opted in to be my FourSquare friend.

I also thought there was some wisdom in limiting the people with whom I was sharing such precise, personal real-time geo-location. (image courtesy Robert Couse-Baker)

So I was a bit miffed to find that if a friend of yours is in the same location and you are both checked in, and he chooses to auto-tweet his FourSquare update, then the default is that he will share in Twitter that you are with him, too. ("Y is at X with @davidcushman).

And if his tweets aren't protected, (whose are?) then your location, who you were with and when, becomes, by default, public domain - and plenty searchable.

Whether or not the unintended sharing of my real time geolocation against my preferences matters or not doesn't sound like much of an issue - until you want to do clandestine stuff. An adhoc job interview, political deal making, affairs of the heart, etc.

Now of course in those circumstances, the wise man may choose not to geolocate themselves within or without FourSquare.

The problem though is that we may be mentioned in a tweet or status update by who ever we are with.
I don't blame FourSquare for this. I don't even seek to single them out. We are still scrabbling for the social etiquette of all this. I rarely ask, for example 'do you mind if I tweet who I'm with?'

Mostly we have the good sense to know what is right and what is wrong - when to seek permission and when to just go ahead (Antony Mayfield's excellent book, Me and My Web Shadow discusses some of this - I'll be reviewing it in detail before too long - disclosure, Antony and I sit together on the board of CitizensOnline).

But we are going through an information revolution; not just in who controls publication, distribution and user experience, but also in the volume of what has hitherto been viewed as personal, private and, to anyone other than our peers, trivial information.

In revolutions it's fair to say there's plenty of stuff that needs living in and through before we start reshaping definitions of wrong and right.

Indeed in a networked, group-forming world it's perfectly reasonable to expect niches of etiquette to emerge. One man's over-sharing may be another man's under-sharing.

If etiquette is the aggregated social conventions of a society, then 'societies' (adhoc communities of purpose) will be manifold, niche and global. One size won't fit all.

Which is all well and good when what is shared about you is shared by people you know. But that's just part of the issue.
Take a look at the picture below (that's Tory leader David Cameron at Starbucks at St Pancras).

What if either party hadn't wished to be known to be in the presence of the other, or to share that they were at x location at y time (google streetview, anyone?).

This picture was taken by someone neither of us knew and published to people that we (at least I) did.

I'm not objecting (at least not on this occasion), merely pointing out the reality of concepts of privacy about geolocation in a connected world.

Privacy seeks to obscure truth. Often to an individual's personal benefit.
Perhaps we are just going to have to get used to living in a state of truth - with the wider - by necessity less personal - benefits that may offer.

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• FourSquare Reaching 1.000.000 Users (mwd.com)
• Geolocation and other shiny things... (socialfish.org)

Follow me...

I'm off to Seville this afternoon. And I've just downloaded version 2 of google maps. Would be a great asset in a city I don't know (apart from razzing round it on scooters on a launch years ago...). Trouble is, it's a data heavy application and while I have a flat-rate data tariff (with 3) that only applies when I stay within the confines of the UK.
So the moment I hit a foreign city - the moment mobile guidance services acquire their greatest value - I'm disinclined to use them.
Must be a model brewing here for google maps? Ad-supported perhaps - free at the point of use where-ever you are?
The new version (only available through 3 in the UK, they claim... someone tell me this ain't so!) geo-locates you via the 'my location' function. Very useful. I'll find out just how useful when it starts working. First couple of attempts resulted in the 'your current location is temporarily unavailable ' message. Funny, since I appear to be here...

Anyway on a similar 'how much for that data!?!' theme, expect me to be updating twitter (which'll bounce through to facebook status, too) via sms text while I'm away - and not via the facebook mobile app.
So if you want to be first with the news of which paella I'm trying next, follow me on twitter.
(see left hand column further down the page).

UPDATED: My twitter-updates-facebook-updates-twitter ruse turned into a nasty spiralling mess. I will therefore only be updating twitter for the next few days. Like I say... follow me!

Rather know where you are... or everything?

Am I missing something? The headlines (Consumers Prefer GPS over Mobile Internet/GPS edges out internet as desired mobile feature - study) tell us US mobile phone users would rather have a GPS-enabled phone than a mobile-internet enabled one.

Translation: I'd rather have a sat-nav than be a live, real-time connected node on the network.

What kind of questions resulted in that?
Q"Would you like to know where you are? Or would you like to know any and everything?"
A"Oh, I'll take where I am thanks."
Uh?

Knowing where you are and where you're headed is all very nice - but it's so much more useful if you can check in with the human race for a bit of help and advice about what's around you as you go.

So, in my view, those headlines are red-herrings. My guess is what people actually want is connection and if you can also hand them a map, they'll thank you for it.

Mobile Internet WITH geolocation is clearly a powerful proposition, but if I have to take one or the other, I'll take mobile internet every single time.

What users want from modern digital offerings

I compiled the below list of recognised current trends when thinking about the boxes that need ticking when developing a social-networking mobile internet offering. But they probably apply to all current digital planning.

Granted, my thinking is probably a bit focused on Generation-C (the under 27s this year, the under 29s, next) but then, they are the most likely group to take-up a 3G mobile offering anyway - I'd have thought. What other trends do you think ought to be considered?

Check the list and add your thoughts by posting below.

• Users want to tag their world (3G, geolocation)
• People are making use of new social networking tools to re-establish a ‘we-species’ (as in communities everywhere, but with 3G geolocation these communities can be focused on where you are right now, with the fluidity to allow you to connect with new communities as you move through your world).
• Users want to remain permanently connected to their communities (through text messaging if not ‘online all the time’.)
• People are (naturally) creative and want to co-create their content if we give them the tools.
• People want their opinions to matter – and will rate things (including content others have created).
• People are increasingly used to using several channels, increasingly at once.
• They demand speed of response.
• They have an open-minded approach to change and to experimentation (creative hacking).
• Access to mobile internet is accelerating and looks set to overtake fixed line. Design for it!
• Convergent technology is helping to drive much of the above.
• Crowd-sourcing draws on all these to create contributory communities willing to help develop products which can self-perfect. This can inform all digital development.