My first session of the day was “Enabling New Experiences and Creating Serendipity Through Check-ins,” an interview of Dennis Crowley, CEO of Foursquare, by Mashable CEO Pete Cashmore. Despite the massive room it was held in, the interview felt rather intimate and informal. The first thing I noticed was that Crowley was wearing a super sweet yellow watch–okay, you’ve got my attention. Now I want to hear some good news about how you’re improving the way businesses can find and connect with new customers. And I may have gotten it.

Crowley talked a little about their revenue model, which is really focused on providing more value to users and merchants alike. They are working closely with local merchants to find new, unique and useful ways to reach out to customers. New types of specials, recommendations and the Explore tab are the main focuses right now. He was also super excited about the possibility of adding a venue to your list, and being alerted that it’s close by as you walk down the street, in case you forgot or you’re traveling. Crowley said they will focus on these types of pull notifications, rather than pushing coupons to your phone from every single business you walk by.

Cashmore asked him about competitors, specifically Groupon. Crowley said he doesn’t view Groupon as a true competitor, despite them both going after local merchants. Groupon focuses on bringing in new customers, while Foursquare brings the loyal ones back again and again.

They also played a quick game of Family Feud, because Crowley’s family won when he was young. Cashmore polled 50 SXSW attendees over the past few days to get the top answers. My favorite response was from the question “What is the worst thing about Foursquare?” The fourth most common answer was “My friends never do anything cool.” I’m not sure I’d call that a problem with Foursquare, just sounds like it’s time to make new friends!

I attended the keynote with Actress and Web TV Producer Felicia Day somewhat by accident. I meant to attend another session but realized at the last minute it was all the way across town. But I was quite surprised and pleased that I stuck around. Day, a long-term gamer and World of Warcraft addict, writes, stars in and produces The Guild, a web-based television show. Day shared how her team used social media to promote and grow the show. She had some interesting insight on how best to use social media and create a personality for yourself or your brand. She compared social media to a cheesy direct mail piece she received for animal adoption programs–it contained a mangy kitten with a sappy story personalizing the animal. She cited how this type of advertising, while slightly over-the-top, creates a character and narrative that allows you to feel connected to the cause. The same thing can be done through social media–you can personalize and humanize a brand, thus better connecting customers, building trust and ultimately, increasing results.

She also discussed the idea of “mainstream content,” citing how it does not exist any more because there are so many ways to consume content now–it can no longer be measured by television viewership or newspaper circulations numbers. While this statement was not shocking, it does further confirm the need for expanding one’s view of marketing channels, ensuring that you are covering all of those used by your target audience.

Day was also a volunteer at SXSW years ago, helping to stuff bags with swag. She’s come a long way, baby!

I had to even out the score on location-based service sessions, so I attended one by Gowalla CEO Josh Williams, called “Where Are We Going? The Future of Location.” Williams launched into some history on Gowalla—initially he got into pixel art and started developing little icons that he sold at Icon Buffet. He found people weren’t using them for design, but for a fun game of trading icons back and forth. After dabbling in online charitable donations and social gaming, he had an epiphany at Lake Tahoe, which lead to the creation of Gowalla soon after. But enough about the past, this session was about the future!

The following are some of the potential issues that Williams warns against for location-based services:

• Checking-in — Williams warned about check-in overload. Everyone is adding some sort of checkin functionality to their apps, and he feels that if this trend continues, it will create too much noise and people will tune it out.
• Usefulness — He also warned about not adding in too many game mechanics. They’re just schtick, and the novelty will wear off. Must provide something useful to users.
• Badges — Similar to the point above, must provide something more useful than badges.
• Social Validation — People use social media for validation of thoughts and opinions (you tweet to get retweeted, post to get comments). If social validation is not incorporated into location-based services, they will not get used.
• Geo-noise – No one outside of SXSW cares about all of our activity this week (I do apologize to my friends and followers)! To become relevant to a larger audience or your entire audience, must provide something more people-friendly.

And these are the future trends he sees (or at least hopes for):

• Location is the key ingredient to great mobile experiences
• Must design for mobile because that is the future
• Passive applications — must not interrupt daily lives; ask if you want to check in since you’re close; however, these drain battery life so need to improve that first
• Social good — mobile text donations, promoting causes through mobile and social, and companies being developed around the idea of giving back will become more prevalent in future
• Story — stop focusing on gaming, and start creating and telling stories