Indeed, location-based applications are the 'Holy Grail' of mobile marketing, and the prove is not far-fetched, as even Google has turned on that direction with the purported launch of Autonomous Search. Reports has it that Facebook plans to employ the location-based service on its newest profile feature Timeline and possibly extend same in its quest to positioning the social network to be profitable on the mobile platform.
Again, the issue of tracking users activities cannot be ignored at this point., as any location-based app tracks users surfing patterns and actions to decide their likes. And such information are now made available to businesses for marketing purposes.
The growing privacy agitation by Facebook users has to be critically analyzed against the current trend, and necessary measures put in place to check excessive exploit.
However, location-based mobile applications definitely has its advantages as regards local businesses, user recommended services and preferences. But the exploitations of users against their wish for mere business purposes certainly must be condemned.
