With LBS startups and the art of “checking in” still evolving as a brand new concept, some are already speculating that an entirely new breed of location-based social networking will replace it, effectively making the concept as we know it all but obsolete.
Though that may sound over the top, it’s exactly the opinion of Mark Cuban, who recently posted on his blog about a new company he’s just invested in that’s building the “next generation” of LBS social networking. The idea is centered around facial recognition and real-time video imagery of specific locations, so instead of checking in, the next iteration of LBS apps would already know you’re there.
“I just invested in a company that takes video of an area and can tell you exactly how many people are in the capture area at any given time,” said Cuban in his post. “It’s great for traffic patterns, security, and much more. We are posting cameras in certain environments where anonymity is required, and we don’t and won’t capture faces or anything that could identify an individual. We will simply provide incredibly accurate traffic information and patterns. A great application with great opportunity.”
Details are obviously scant, as the name of the startup in question wasn’t even divulged, but the concept is intriguing nonetheless. The most interesting, in my opinion, was this statement;
“Of course there would have to be ‘opt out’ mechanisms. Of course there would be a battle over whether or not a store or venue should be ‘opt in’ vs. automated recognition, but that’s not a software issue,” he explains. “The reality is that its solves ‘the path of least resistance’ issue with check-ins for location-based software. Individuals never do any of the work. The store/host recognizes you are there and rewards you for allowing your identity and information to be captured and linked. If Amazon can ‘welcome us back’ and offer us personalized specials, why shouldn’t brick and mortar establishments?”
We’ll have to keep our eyes on this one. As Cuban puts it, “location check-in is so 2010.”