Editor’s Note: Going Local

Location Sharing
Localization is also on consumers' minds right now thanks to some pretty cool location-sharing tools from start-ups such as foursquare, Gowalla, MyTown and Brightkite — as well as Google.

foursquare, the leader in the location-sharing space, is a simple application that lets users share where they are — such as visiting a cafe, restaurant, museum, park or retail establishment — and what they're doing, all via mobile phone. GPS units in mobile phones relay locations back to foursquare, and users then get badges for reaching milestones such as visiting the same spot repeatedly or checking in many times in a night. They can become mayors of any one location by visiting it more times than anyone else on foursquare.