I met a friend from out of town over dinner last night. I invited him to an upscale Mexican restaurant that was offering a free dinner promotion on Twitter to those that retweeted the message and called the phone number given for reservations.

Was it too good to be true? It turned out to be “yes”. There’s a reason why they were giving away free dinners, regardless of the double-digit pricetags next to their menu items. In fact, I’m paying for it today. Nevertheless, that’s not the point of this story. 

Over dinner, I shared my agency’s SXSW success story and Gowalla partnership with my colleague and he asked, “how far is the reach of location-based services? Gowalla and Foursquare make sense at SXSW, but how are they relevant to everyone else’s target audience and demographic in every day life?“

 It’s a good question that I’m sure a lot of companies have echoed across the industries. I replied, “It’s just as relevant as Twitter and Facebook. In terms of reach, LBS will even quite possibly match both in the near future.” I know it sounds ambitious, but consider these points.

Cross-Cultural

Both Gowalla and FourSquare offer users the options to update their Twitter and/or Facebook statuses with their check-ins. The latest version of Gowalla even allows photo uploads based around the location of the user. Again here, you can share your photo from Gowalla with Twitter and Facebook. This is how you reach (and gain) audiences who may not know about LBS. With Facebook surpassing Google as the #1 U.S. site this year, this social networking platform is the world mecca of all kinds of cultures. The number of possible connections between friends of friends who see these LBS status updates are infinite.

There are thousands of people gaining attention to LBS daily on Twitter as well, and as the following of Gowalla and Foursquare grow, the popularity and relevance of these location-based services will spread across platforms.

Popular Partnerships

I wouldn’t be surprised to see LinkedIn, Flickr or other professional social channels follow suit. Perhaps they may even find someone to partner with. Take Foursquare’s fresh new venture for example. Just announced yesterday, Foursquare landed a deal with MTV and VH1 to let users stalk celebrities. What better way to grasp a bigger and broader audience than to entice America with a celebrity carrot stick? This isn’t the first for Foursquare: Bravo, Zagat, New York Times have all partnered up with the player.

Let’s not forget about Gowalla. Other than their most recent recognition as the Mobile Web Award winner at SXSW, this LBS proved to be a heavy hitter with Chevrolet and the attending consumers as well. Right before the festival, Gowalla signed a major media partnership with the Travel Channel. They will be working together to offer “the integration of proprietary Travel Channel content into Gowalla’s social networking service.” In my opinion, this is the ideal marriage between a consumer commodity and social location program.

More Coming To A Mobile Near

It’s becoming apparent that location-based services are the new mobile contender when it comes to mobile applications and social networking. Both Gowalla and Foursquare are gradually expanding their handheld reach by developing OS-friendly versions for many of the popular smartphones in the U.S. Both are already catching on overseas and eventually it won’t be long until two people in a Latin country have this same conversation about the significance of social media over bad American food. In fact, I’m sure it’s already happened more than once in several different places.