Business Upside: The company offers its ambient platform for commercial use. Of course, it won't let you bombard pedestrians outside your business with intrusive freebie offers, but as ambient technology becomes more normalized, users will become more susceptible to opting in for such services. For now however, the platform is still new and mostly populated by early adopters. This is good because those folks usually set trends in their digital communities; it's not so good because these communities are still small.

Where to Start

All of this geolocation talk can seem overwhelming for a business owner looking to get the word out. Firstly, don't get bogged down by the options. If your company already has a large Facebook presence, start playing around with Facebook Places. If your location is hard to find, or your demographic older or otherwise less likely to be on social networking sites, jump onto Google Maps.

Second, these services are not reserved for the Starbucks and RadioShacks of the world. Though small businesses may have less time and resources to put towards the services, they are free and generally simple to use. If I walk into RadioShack for example, all I need to do is show the cashier that I checked into the location on Foursquare, and the store would deduct 10 percent. That simple.

The rapid rise of Foursquare and the introduction of similar services by bigger players demonstrate that geolocation services are here to stay. So, while many small businesses will initially feel lost in the space, it's a good idea to get comfortable early on. Remember how bizarre social media felt at first? Well, it'll be kind of like that.