I’m an avid Trailblazers fan. As I sit in the stands I am reminiscent of times before check-in’s and tweets—how did I see everyone in the stands before? Binoculars I think. I pull out my new iPhone 4G and load Facebook—within seconds I select ‘Ping’ and select ‘Friends’. It is amazing thinking that just last year I loaded a clunky program that only allowed me to check-in—but today with a couple of clicks on my speedy mobile device I am saying hello to everyone in the stands that are within my social network.

I hold up the screen and pan from left to right. The video recorder in the iPhone 4g has fully realized augmented reality and it is delightful. A quick on screen overlay shows beacons above the seats of all of my friends in the stands. Look, it’s Tom—I had no idea he even liked basketball. More importantly, I’m not sure his wife would appreciate him taking another woman to the game. Oh well, for another time. This is really something—this whole Social 2.0.

This is my vision of social media, just around the corner. Take a moment to share your vision with us in the comments below. Thanks for your time socialnauts.

I have always been a fan of Foursquare. What they brought to social media was an exploration into location based social media—testing the waters as to the privacy boundaries, or lack there of, and all issues associated with check-in updates. The adoption rate has been fantastic for this emerging network, and with their ability to strike deals up with European characters Foursquare seemed to be on a roll. In addition the standing offer to be bought out for 100 million+, the writing was on the wall.

Enter Facebook So here we are, about to see Facebook jump into the location-game. Foursquare might have wanted to take that offer after all. They aren’t necessarily out of the game, but we could have seen this coming with the roll-out of a retail storefront sticker campaign that is being tested. Nonetheless, the Internet continues to mature, and I am excited to see it happen.

What does this mean for SMB and Retailers? Contrary to the constant smattering of dissenters, Facebook is very much so poised to teach the world how to integrate social media into SMB and retail storefronts. I imagine that in a years time we no longer will be hearing people holding onto the notion that Google Adwords and SEO are the only way to promote their businesses—to be first to the party for SMB on Facebook was a position of yesterday.

So here are some tips for those not ready for this shift:

I’m not a gambler, and I certainly do not have a crystal ball. However it is becoming pretty evident that location based social networking will continue to grow. Simply put, a higher degree of mobile device integration by some big players [Google: desktops will be replaced, Intel: showing their hand towards mobile , Apple: the iPhone was successful, what if we made it bigger? ] continues to cater to the demand for continuous connectivity—and more importantly, support for seamless real-time-location interactions.

This is not a new principle—but if we were talking about social networks as a whole, in human-development they would just be entering into adolescence. They are hormonally challenged, seeking an identity, loose with their privacy, frenetic, and awkward—all while having a great deal of potential. To boot, they have a look that they all will be ashamed of in 10 years.

So what does this mean for Foursquare?

Well, this means that Foursquare is positioned to be the most successful of its graduating class—let me tell you why. I’ll be upfront in saying that I’m not convinced any of the location-based networks are ‘doing it right’, but no one knows what ‘right’ really looks like yet. However, let’s analyze some key characteristics that Foursquare has going for them and what will keep the lights on:

1. Foursquare is clean. Back to our adolescent analogy—Foursquare hasn’t made any high-commitment bad visual decisions. If we look at Gowalla we see a hip, stylized interface with cheeky cartoons and badges—it is cool no doubt, but not timeless. Don’t get caught up in mayors vs badges, or buttons vs text; in the end it is about functionality. I could go into a deeper dive as to brand creation, and planning for the future, but it is pretty obvious; Gowalla has planned for today, but not the future—they have tattoos not piercings, in their desire to attract attention today. Not convinced that I am right? Remember a little network called Facebook that came off as vanilla that was battling all of the ‘personality’ that MySpace had?
2. Foursquare is mingling with the ‘adults’ of technology, and connecting on a fraternal level. Call it an initiation or a test run—either way, they are getting to play with some matured companies. This is a sign of a strong biz-dev roadplan messaging themselves as a entity vying for a buyout someday. Check out their deal in the EU with Vodafone, or their integration with tech-giant Intel at events like GDC 2010.
3. We’re adolescents, we’re testing our boundaries. As far as technology goes we have seen social networks dance the fine-line of privacy T’s&C’s. In the end it is breeding a population of users that are ok with pushing the limitations of technology while sacrificing a little privacy…if the incentive is right.
4. Lastly, the concept of check-in’s are already a fading interaction. Similar to downward Twitter trends, only having one type of interaction is a recipe for an early eulogy in social network shelf-life. What we are seeing is other social networks jump into the check-in space like Yelp; imitation is the best form of flattery, right? Regardless there is promise that the earlier stated relationships, coupled with early integration of interaction technology, enable Foursquare to move onto more-and-better interactions to engage their communities.

Despite incentives of mayor status, badges, giveaways and what-not I will end on this: the brand promise of a social network, the professional posture of who you play with that enables for expansion into more offerings, and the adolescent-timing of social networks as a whole make Foursquare a contender.