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Location-based social networking (LBSN) is social networking in which a person’s geographic location shapes what they share or how they connect with others. It can mean tagging a photo with a place, checking in at a venue, sharing a current location with friends, or using location-related activity to find people and recommendations. Some services add these features to a broader social network; others build social interactions around geography.
What makes a social network location-based?
Location is more than background information in an LBSN: it plays a role in the content, interaction, or social connections. Microsoft Research describes LBSNs as including both location-embedded content shared within an existing social network and social structures formed through relationships between people and places. Microsoft Research’s overview discusses location as a point, a region, or a trajectory, and notes that it may be represented by coordinates, a relative position, or a label such as “home” or “office.”
Location may refer to where someone is now or to places they have visited over time. A service can use it to add context to a post, enable people to share their presence, or help users discover nearby or relevant activity. Not every service uses every form of location.
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Common examples of location-based social networking
Location-tagged posts and media
A user attaches a place to a photo, video, or text post. The location gives the content geographic context and may help others discover posts associated with that place.
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Check-ins
A check-in is a user-associated statement that they are at a particular place. It is a deliberate indication of presence, not necessarily a record of continuous movement.
Sharing a current location
A person may share their current position with selected friends or contacts. Depending on the service, this can be a point or a broader area, and may be shared once or over a period of time.
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Location-aware discovery and recommendations
A service may use a person’s current or past location-related activity to surface nearby places, suggestions, or other relevant content. These functions can overlap with social features when they draw on friends’ activity, shared visits, or location-tagged media.
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A location-based service (LBS) uses geographic information to provide a function such as maps, directions, or local information. It does not have to create social connections. The “social networking” part of an LBSN matters when location shapes how people share content, interact, discover one another, or form connections. In practice, the categories overlap: a service can combine directions or recommendations with check-ins or friend-location features. Pew Research Center described this overlap in its 2013 report on location-based services.
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Location sharing is not always continuous tracking
A check-in at one venue, a location attached to a post, and a continuously updated movement history are different kinds of location data. Location can be precise or broad, current or historical, and shared once or collected repeatedly. The term LBSN alone does not establish that a service records precise, continuous GPS tracks.
The IETF’s RFC 6280 explains that location information may be generated on or by mobile devices and collected across places and times. It warns that location can reveal activities as well as whereabouts; for example, a visit to a medical clinic may disclose sensitive information. The RFC also identifies stalking and domestic violence risks when location services are abused. The risk depends in part on a location’s precision, how long it is retained, who can access it, and whether it is reused.
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What users’ privacy concerns show
A 2010 study by Janice Y. Tsai, Patrick Gage Kelley, Lorrie Faith Cranor, and Norman Sadeh surveyed 587 US internet users and examined privacy controls in 89 location-sharing applications. The authors found that respondents were especially concerned about controlling who could access their location; anticipated harms included revealing a home location and being stalked. The study describes its respondents and the applications examined at that time, not current user attitudes or today’s app controls. Read the study.
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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsAs a historical indicator only, Pew Research Center reported that 30% of adult social media users said at least one account was set to include their location in posts, based on a May 2013 survey. That figure is not a current estimate of location sharing. Pew’s report also described Foursquare’s then-current shift from check-ins and points toward location-triggered suggestions informed by previous check-ins. This is an example of how social location sharing and recommendations can converge, not a description of the service today.
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How to recognize an LBSN
- Geography affects what users share, see, or do with one another.
- The service connects location with social interaction or content, rather than offering only a map or local information.
- It may use a point, a region, or location history; continuous tracking is not required by the definition.
- Its social features may be built around an existing network or around relationships and activity associated with places.
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