Location Services Overhyped?

The majority of Americans and not “checking in” every place they go—i.e. broadcasting their locations via their mobile phones to anyone who cares, according to a new report issued by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life project.

In fact, just 4 percent of Internet users are using location-based services like the buzz-heavy Foursquare or Gowalla. Perhaps even more telling—on any given day, the percentage of Web users checking in via their mobile devices falls to just 1 percent, per Pew’s research.

The penetration numbers for location-based services are considerably larger for younger demographics—though still relatively tiny.