[...] Odell recently wrote a guest blog titled “5 Reasons Higher Ed can Forget about Location-Based Services” This blog gives some pretty decent reasons why schools don’t need to rush out and [...]

That’s why I think that augmented reality apps like Layar are going to have a much larger impact on the higher ed market.

If you haven’t seen Layar yet, here’s an ad that Verizon recently ran about the app:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVLJghTeKVU

Imagine campus dining services showing up as a layar…I do know that there are a few schools out there that are currently using Layar for geo-based information:
http://site.layar.com/catalog/categories/schools-universities/

You do bring up some great points here, but I wanted to mention the following:

The value of a check in is difficult to measure but it sure does help with current students feeling like they are part of the campus. We (here at Nichols College) have a few active users of FourSquare who have also connected/met online (then offline) because of the site. Could it be a potential retention tool for those turning to the internet to meet new people and friends (now feeling part of the campus)? Not sure and too early to say.

Another benefit is the ability to see who is on your campus and the ability to reach out to them. Alumni, prospective student, or whomever. I have met new people based on their “check-in” and met them for coffee on campus.

You can also learn who potential influencers (and persons with knowledge of social networks) online are in your student body and reach out to them in efforts of building your presence on the web.

We do not spend a lot of time and resources on location-based services, but setting up searches we are notified when somebody is using the service on our campus. Little spent and to be determined on return right now.

- Justin

Thanks for the comments guys!

Justin – The way you guys are using location-based services at Nichols sounds cool. Our differing opinion on its value may be, in part, due to the varying size of our campuses. I’m curious, are you using Twitter in the same manner? At least from my experience, Twitter would be a far better tool to help you see who is on your campus and to reach out to them to open a discussion.

The fact that you’ve found a way to turn a check-in into a tangible face-to-face relationship is awesome and absolutely makes those check-ins valuable. Obviously doing that every time wouldn’t be practical, but identifying key times to invest your energy to do so might make sense.

Eric, Layar looks awesome, but I have to think we are years away before that type of technology is widely useful on a college campus. For the schools using it now it’s probably fun, but I’d doubt they are seeing much use at all. I absolutely could be wrong on this one, but I just don’t see a student walking around campus looking at buildings through their smartscreen. Again, might just be me on that one.

Seth –

Our campus is about 1500 students and located in a rural area; there would be a much larger audience and potential for a city-based (and larger) college. For other colleges it would depend on the audience (students) and their use and practicality of presence.

At first I did not think it would be worth the time, but after researching [and being surprised] how many were “checking in” here the decision was easy (be where your audience is)!

I agree on making the decision when to reach out and when to just sit back and watch (you cannot spend all your time meeting with every check-in) and that goes for all social networking sites.

We use Twitter in a similar manner; connect with students, parents, alumni, local businesses (potential places for interns/careers for graduates), let people know what we are up to, etc.

Another huge component of our use of Twitter is to build our key words and phrases for search engines as well (there HAS to be strategy in tweeting). Some of the connections and conversations there started with a check-in (I have too many constant searches going on to monitor our brand and keywords we want to see/reply to).

[...] 5 Reasons Higher Ed Can Forget about Location-Based Services by @Inigral While they might not be a marketing goldmine for higher ed, location-based services are far from dead in the water. But let’s face it, we’re not Starbucks and we’re not giving out frappacinos. You’re welcome to keep the technology on your radar, but for now keep it out of your marketing playbook. [...]

[...] I must respectfully disagree with Seth O’Dell.  I don’t think he’s taking the long view on Location-Based Services when he wrote why Higher Ed Can Forget about Location-Based Services. [...]

Howdy from Texas A&M! We are the third school (behind Harvard and Stanford) to launch an official presence on FourSquare. Check us out at http://foursquare.com/tamu.

Diane C. McDonald
Director of Social Media & Marketing Programs
mcdonaldd@tamu.edu

[...] Jump to Comments A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post for Inigral.com about why higher ed can forget about location-based services. Since then, I’ve discovered the service Double Dutch and have to say they’ve changed [...]

[...] few weeks ago I wrote a blog post about why higher ed can forget about location-based services. Since then, I’ve discovered the service Double Dutch and have to say they’ve changed my mind. [...]