Miguelito and Emily. March 20, 2010

"The key trend to think about here is people are spending more time talking to and interacting with each other. This does impact Google because people may be making decisions by listening and talking to each other rather than using traditional search avenues." [Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst at the Altimeter Group in San Mateo ]

I'm no social networking pundit, but I've been aware of this trend for some time. When it comes to announcing flamenco events in DC, I still get the word out via DCFlamenco.com but I'm finding it's more effective for me to keep the local community informed through Facebook.

Why? Well, I don't have to be a social networking expert to know that a lot of people spend a lot of time on Facebook everyday, usually at work (yeah I'm talking about YOU!). So whenever I announce something on Facebook, it goes out to my more than 1500 "friends" of which a couple hundred are local friends with an interest in flamenco. Actually the majority of my "friends" are flamencos from all over the world!

Emily and Miguelito. March 20, 2010

So you've read this far and you're still wondering what does all this techy stuff have to do with flamenco? It's mostly just to give you an appreciation for what I have to do to keep up with the ways to keep the local community informed—my primary goal! If you've had enough of this geekiness, stop reading now, because it gets worse. :)

Miguelito and Emily. March 20, 2010

Now that you know why I spend a lot time keeping up with Internet technology, let's answer the question, "Why am I so interested in Location-Based Social Networks?" [or LBSN for short]

First of all, what is LBSN? There are a couple of apps for the iPhone that go by the names Foursquare and Gowalla (there are more, but these are the most popular) that let you "check in" whenever you go someplace like a club on Saturday night so that your friends who have the same app will know where to find you. Hence, you network with your friends socially based on your location. Get it?

I mean you could just call up or text friends at 11:00pm saying, "So where's the party tonight?"

But wouldn't it be cool to use an app like Foursquare and at-a-glance get an idea of where all your friends are hanging out right now?

My current Foursquare screeen on my iPod Touch.

As you can see above, there are only two people who have checked in today. Of course, this is only helpful if a large number of your friends actually use the app. But it still hasn't caught on in the DC area, not yet. Being the geek, I'm playing with Foursquare for now so that if and when location-based social networking does catch on, I'll be ahead of the game.

Another cool feature with Foursquare is that you can use it to explore the city. If you tap on the tab for "Places," you'll get a list of restaurants and clubs near you. And if you click on individual places, you'll get more details such as who's there right now as well as comments and recommendations from people who have been there. And of course, yours truly is visiting all the flamenco spots in DC and announcing where and when the flamenco shows take place.

Recommendation for the Saturday night flamenco show at Cafe Citron.

Yet another way for people who are just exploring to discover the flamenco happenings in DC! But like I mentioned, this will only be useful if a lot of your friends get on board. Anywayz, you get the idea.

Location-based social network technology has some kinks to work out before it catches on, but you can count on me to be keeping up with the latest developments and using them promote the DC flamenco scene!

My office "cubicle" on Saturday nights. :-) March 20, 2010

I'm not a total geek though. I still do network the "analog" way. :-) For example, usually before my shows at Citron, I go around to some of the tables and introduce myself. Most of the time, I do this to find out if there are any people who know how to dance Sevillanas so they can have a little fun and come up on stage. It's a perfect icebreaker for me though and I've made quite a friends that I wouldn't have otherwise met if I didn't take the initiative and introduce myself this way.

Check out the Red Guitar Wine website. March 20, 2010

This past Saturday there was this one cute girl in the audience that I recognized. I had seen her in a dance class a while back, but couldn't quite remember her name. Actually I don't remember talking to her much anyway. Usually the dance students take off immediately after dance class and I usually have someplace to rush off to anyway.

But if I didn't follow this habit of going out and introducing myself before the show I probably wouldn't have gotten around to talking to her. Speaking of which I didn't ask her how she found out about the flamenco show at Citron, but I'm willing to bet that my geeky work on the computer had some influence!!!

View from the stage: Emily and friends at the front table. March 20, 2010

Call me a computer geek if you want, but if being one means that I'm helping flamencos meet other like-minded people, promoting the art and having a good time, then I've done my job!

PS Checkout this article titled Is Foursquare the new Facebook? Location-based social networking could be the next big thing.