My latest University Business column is now available in the February issue as well as online: “Location, location, location: Should institutions dive into Foursquare and other location-based services?”
In this column, I take a look at the newest shiny toys we’ve been playing with for a few months now in higher education: location-based services.
My goal for this article was to discuss if (and in which cases) institutions should go ballistic with Foursquare, Gowalla, SCNVGR and other location-based services
I would love to hear what YOU think.
Do you think it’s time for higher ed to embrace location-based services? What’s your experience at your institution? Are your students checking in like crazy or is it pretty quiet?
Good analysis of the state of LBS in higher ed. On our campus, we are starting to see interest in Foursquare among just a few of our students (and they are also mostly active Twitter users) but, interestingly, very little interest among students in Facebook Places. I doubt LBS will end up like SecondLife because location-based services are so connected to the tangible world, unlike SL and its virtual, screen-based world. Also, LBS are mobile, and that’s where things are headed.
Actually, I see how LBS can make a difference for people, businesses and stores.
However, I think it’s a tiny bit too early to get crazy about LBS for higher ed institutions as I tried to show in my column.
My editor asked me to address the topic for the February issue. Had I made that decision, I would have waited at least 6 more months ;-)
We’ve been monitoring Foursquare and Facebook Places usage at our institution but have not put our toes in the water yet. From monitoring, similar take on usage to your article and Andrew’s comments…the students who are the most engaged Twitter users seem to be the ones using it most. We are going to start testing both platforms from a college-wide standpoint this semester. Really just want to get a lay of the land first, but we’ll be tracking how we can use them to engage students to participate in campus events and activities as well as seeing if there is any return in encouraging different service departments across campus (i.e. dining services, boosktore, library, etc.) to push targeted specials and promotions.
Thanks for sharing your experience at the Undergraduate School @ Babson, Gene.
Great post, Karine! I enjoy reading how universities are using location based services. I’m not sold on them yet for our institution. Aside from the usual understaffing issue (1 person team), and spreading myself too thing among social media efforts, I don’t know what the ROI would be for us. I’m aware that part of my problem is that I don’t get much value out of it personally, so I have trouble envisioning what our students will get from it. Also, we only get a couple of check-ins per week. At this point, focusing on Facebook and Twitter, and making our website better is my top priority. Maybe as these location services evolve, I’ll be more inclined to jump aboard. Also, our campus is in a rather small town and not a lot of businesses interact with these services, so I think students just aren’t in the habit of using them. If they could get more coupons or something, we’d probably have more users.