Having travelled through 3 Asian countries in the last week , I’m amazed at the amount of people now participating on location based social networks. The stats still show that it is a small minority of overall social network users, however usage is growing at an increasingly faster rate.
When i travel, whether it’s business or pleasure, I always try my best to find hidden little alleyways and cafes outside the reach of mainstream tourists. To my surprise, upon doing exactly that in numerous locations over the past week, i was shocked to find that the majority of places i went to, no matter how obscure, had someone “check-in” already on either Foursquare, FB places, or Gowalla. Some even leaving quite useful tips such as local lingo to get a better deal or portion of satay.