Walking To The Sky

The idea of location-based social service is not new. Since Foursquare, every year in SXSW, a lot of location-based apps try to get the buzz. This year almost all these apps try to play with the concept of social discovery service. The discovery service is about find people who are close and you probably would like to meet, based on the exist data on your social network.

Last year, Sonar and Banjo try to solve this problem by using check-in mechanism.After Realizing that check-in is not the right choice to get location for realtime discovery service. This year almost every app is designed to run in the background.Yes, they solved the real-time issue. But I don’t know whether it’s the right solution or not. Because Loopt have already proved that the users will kill the app since it will drain your battery.

So what’s the key of social discovery service? The first batch of the apps put location first, people second. This year, people is the lead and location is the support role.In my opinion, I think they miss a key factor of social interaction which is social scenario.Try to imagine following scenario, and think about which is more natural for people to get connected.
1.You’re waiting for your coffee in the Starbucks. A stranger walk over and say his a friend of your friend. Would you like to chat with him?
2.You’re walking down the street. A stranger come over and say his a friend of your friend. Would you like to chat with him?
3. You’re in a party. A stranger walk over and say his a friend of your friend. Would you like to chat with him?
You can meet with new people by using all these 3 ways.But apparently in the last scenario, there is a great chance that you will talk to the stranger. Because you’re in a social event, you already have the preparation to meet new people.

Nowadays a huge amount of venture capital’s money goes to these location-based service, cause they believe that location is the key that driving people get connected. After the above analysis, I believe that location is not the silver bullet, what happened on the location and who are at the location are more important than the location.

In my opinion, social event can be the key of social discovery service. The event can create a social scenario that help people get connected. The RSVP information can replace the check-in to help analyse user’s behavior. Don’t need to run in the background, provide all the information of people who attend the event, let the user decide who they want to talk to. Partner with ticket vendors, promote their public event and get commission fee from them which is a solid business model for me.

I built Advent for 08766′s poster show. Advent use event as a bridge to provide you real social experience.Bring social interaction from online to offline.We leverag Facebook open graph, help users to discover events and people who match their interests. More importantly, we provide the background information to help users get connected with others in real life. I believe that Advent can be one good solution in social discovery area. I really hope Advent can bring people out of their room to meet new people, instead of nesting in home and meeting people use virtual social network.