Smartphone adoption has surpassed 50% of the population in morethan 15 countries, and there are now more than one million mobileapplications people can download to their phones. Many of theseapplications take advantage of smartphones as locative media, whichis what allows smartphones to be located in physical space.Applications that take advantage of people's location arecalled location-based services, and they are the focus of thisbook.
Smartphones as locative media raise important questions abouthow we understand the complicated relationship between the Internetand physical space. This book addresses these questions through aninterdisciplinary theoretical framework and a detailed analysis ofhow various popular mobile applications including Google Maps,Facebook, Instagram, Yelp, and Foursquare use people'slocation to provide information about their surrounding space.
The topics explored in this book are essential reading foranyone interested in how smartphones and location-based serviceshave begun to impact the ways we navigate and engage with thephysical world.