• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, May 7, 2010

Despite a pair of boxing gloves prominently displayed, a confab billed as the "Battle of the Mobile Social Media Leaders" turned out to be more lovefest than cage match. That's not to say all the startups on the panel held at Ogilvy's Digital Labs in New York on Friday will still be standing as independent companies a year from now.

The hot social location space carved out by companies on hand like Foursquare, Loopt and Brightkite is becoming more and more crowded as venture investors, entrepreneurs and big Web companies flood in to strike digital gold. But for an hour at least, the top players in the niche could bask in the warm glow of a sunny May afternoon and a buzzing overflow audience.

Seemingly, none of the rival companies gathered are even riven by jealousy over all the attention lavished on Foursquare, the undisputed publicity champ of the social location set. "More media raises the tide for all boats," said Nihal Mehta, CEO and founder of social city guide Buzzd. "We're all benefiting from the Foursquare press."

As the subject of recent acquisition rumors involving Yahoo and others that put its value at around $100 million, Foursquare is probably benefiting the most. Nevertheless, co-founder Naveen Selvadurai modestly gave credit to companies like Facebook and Twitter for laying the groundwork. "They made it easier to share data and paved the way for the rest of us," he said. (Foursquare is now returning the favor by adding Facebook's "Like" buttons to all its venue pages.)

But popularity has a price. Has the "check-in" feature made famous by Foursquare and borrowed by competitors already become passe? "I think there's now a little bit of check-in fatigue," said Mehta. He went on to suggest that users' proactively taking out an app to update their location would give way to automatic prompting about their activities.

That might include a location-aware app knowing someone is at a movie and then asking them shortly afterward to indicate via mobile device whether they liked the film or not. Brian Marciniak, head of global business development at Loopt, said his company gives users the option of being tracked persistently or not via its mobile app. "Some users aren't comfortable having their location automatically updated," he explained.

The key, he said, is conditioning people's behavior so they check for mobile coupons or other promotions when they are standing in line at a Starbucks or a retail store. "If people become more aware of places they can check into and get these rewards, they'll become more open to using these services," he said.

Naturally, the ability to track people's movements via GPS technology to serve up location-based offers has raised privacy concerns. But the executives assured that their companies were providing services on an opt-in basis and giving users control over the scope of information-sharing via their own platforms or partners like Facebook.

Selvadurai also noted that people have been already been posting public messages on Twitter for some time about where they're traveling or otherwise away from home. "So it's nothing new to location networks -- you've always been able to do this," he said. With Foursquare taking a permission-based approach, "we don't send anything out you don't want to see," he added.

Of course, that doesn't mean privacy loopholes haven't been found.

When it came to advice for advertisers, Selvadurai and other panelists urged brands to jump into the social mobile arena and tailor promotions to the activities of target audiences. "Stop being so conservative and start experimenting," said Mehta. "It doesn't take a big investment."

A recent forecast by Borrell Associates forecast that location-based mobile spending overall will reach $4 billion by 2015, up from just $34 million last year. Major brands such as Pepsi, Starbucks and Best Buy have already partnered on marketing efforts with companies like Foursquare and Brightkite. And while the event was hosted by a big-name agency, Madison Avenue didn't get much credit for being at the forefront of social location advertising.

"Innovation is coming from the brands, not agencies," said Rob Lawson, co-founder of location-based social network Brightkite. Now them's fightin' words.