First Twitter asked: “What are you doing?” Then they asked: “What’s happening?”  Now the question of the moment seems to be “Where are you?”  Twitter, however, was not the first to ask this question, and they are not the only ones wanting to know our whereabouts. Even though they recently added location tags to tweets, there are many other location-based applications that beat Twitter to the punch.  The recent surge of location-based social networks and applications may prove to be the next big thing in the world of social media.  Location-based services were in the spotlight this week at South by Southwest and the buzz they gained will most likely boost their popularity over the next few months.

For anyone unfamiliar with location-based services, they allow users to announce their location through their phone or online.  Once a user “checks-in” to a location, they can interact with others in the area, read reviews about attractions in the near vicinity, or take advantage of promotions and incentive programs.  These applications are also beneficial for business owners since they can increase store traffic, promote a sale and reward loyal customers.  Location based services allow businesses to create a local connection with customers and engage with them in an entirely new way.

This week at SXSW, attendees were able to navigate the festival with help of various location-based services.  Although Loopt was the first company to launch this type of platform, many companies have since joined the trend.  Foursquare and Gowalla seem to be front runners, however, MyTown has been rapidly gaining new users. Yelp, Where.com and Whrrl3 are also on the scene, and Facebook recently announced it will add the feature in April.

Location-based services gained tremendous exposure at SXSW and they do not seem to be going away anytime soon. As awareness for location-based services continues to steadily increase, we are likely to see a few companies fade away while a couple strong front runners emerge.  The current buzz around these applications due to SXSW may be just the boost needed for these apps to become mainstream.