Survey on location services – the results

I put together a quick survey on how people use location services and what they think of the future of location. There were 101 respondents to the survey so take it as a snapshot of the trends, but an interesting one nonetheless!

Will you use Facebook Places?

Everyone’s talking about Facebook Places at the moment, but I wanted to know exactly how many people planned on using it. The answer surprised me, with the majority saying that they wouldn’t use this. Judging from the conversation online it seems there’s a few things putting people off places, including not wanting to clutter their newsfeed with ‘I’m here’ posts. When it’s rolled out it’ll be interesting to see how usage figures of Places compares to Facebook members overall, and if they support the trend below :

Do you use a location based service on your mobile?

I’m not the biggest fan of location services and to set the scene of the survey I wanted to see just how many people actually use a location service on their phone. I thought the result for people that do, would actually be higher :

Which location service do you use?

Foursquare is always talked about as the clear winner in location based services and I wanted to see which other services were getting a look in, particularly among 4 of the biggest location offerings. (This survey was conducted outside of the U.S. so Facebook wasn’t include) The findings seem to confirm Foursquare’s popularity, while also showing just how little uptake there is in Google Places.

Are you concerned about privacy with Facebook Places?

Facebook have made some pretty daring moves with their release of Places, allowing friends to check other friends into places (unless you’ve opted out through your security settings). I have to admit that this is one area that really concerns me, and up until now I haven’t been particularly put out, on a personal level, by any of Facebook’s security settings. Given that more people are concerned about privacy than use location services at all, shows just how wrong Facebook may have gotten the security of the service

Do you think Facebook Places is a threat to Foursquare?

The question on everyone’s lips is whether Facebook Places will be the biggest threat that Foursquare has placed. Despite Foursquare receiving their highest number of signups the day after Facebook announced their own location offering, the threat is clear. Facebook has taken location into the mainstream, and the findings seem to support this :

Have you ever had a discount or reward through a business on a location service?

We’re seeing an increasing amount of both large and small businesses experiment with location, but is anyone benefiting from these rewards? Location is certainly only its early stage so this is something that could grow, but I didn’t actually expect this to be as high as it was :

Is location a fad?

I’m still not convinced of the future of location, not because I’m not a fan myself, but because I’m not sure just how comfortable people will ever be with sharing their location. We certainly haven’t seen the full capabilities of location yet and it seems that many people see the future in location. Indeed, more than said they use location currently

I was really surprised by a lot of these findings, but particularly the concerns around privacy issues for Facebook Places, even by more people that used a location service currently. Given that location is at such an early stage of adoption and is yet to really reach the mainstream, it will be interesting to compare these results in 6 months or a years time to see how they differ.