There’s been a lot of recent buzz going around about Facebook and it’s upcoming location features. According to two reports given by AdAge.com, Facebook will be rolling out a location-sharing feature later this month that will allow users to share their location with their status updates. This has caused some speculation that the 400 million users that Facebook now has to leverage this service will render smaller services like FourSquare, GoWalla, and Taggstr as irrelevant. However, we think that Facebook is going to open up this feature to developers and keep a consistency in their open “social graph”. Although we at Taggstr already have chosen to leverage Facebook’s platform to allow users to share their location, this is going to open a whole new avenue of integration.
Another development that is speculated with Facebook is that they will be building a single-source database of locations. If Facebook becomes the main hub for location information, then its APIs provide us with unrivaled tools. It is unclear as to how Facebook will allow third-parties to tap into their location features, but we’re really excited. Facebook’s adoption of the check-in also means that it will reduce the privacy anxiety from users a ton. Users will become more open to sharing their location, and thus more open to “tagging” it as well. Sharing your location with your friends on Facebook is a lot different from leaving comments on a public “tagg-stream” for a location. This is what we aim to do with Taggstr; not only are you sharing your location with you friends and providing content for them to see, but you are contributing to a sort of virtual bulletin for that location that everybody can experience.
That being said, we do feel that we have some advantages in the space over Facebook in terms of privacy controls. Trying to get these patented will differentiate us from the rest and give us a greater value offering to the user. Furthermore, our high levels of media capability render us more valuable to the vendor, which in the end will decide the value of our service. We’re looking forward to coming out with the service in June and get your iPhones ready to start tagging!
This past weekend, Taggstr was present at Berkeley’s “Largest Experiential College Festival” Caltopia and officially marked the beginning of our charge towards building a community between colleges, the students who attend them, and the venues that feed them. The event was amazingly packed as Cal students stormed the Recreational Center in search for huge amounts of free swag. The Taggstr team didn’t disappoint as we gave away cool orange Taggstr shirts to those who downloaded the Taggstr app and hundreds of Taggstr stickers for people to spread the word! Check out the video link below to see Taggstr’s CEO, Alamgir Mand, talk about Taggstr and his vision.
