Akademik

n.

Mobile phone apps that combine social networking and location data. [Social + location (or local) + mobile.]

As South by Southwest bears down, we're seeing accelerated promotion of products that fuse social, local and mobile media (SoLoMo). This follows the success that Foursquare had at SXSW '09, before quickly expanding to its current 7.5 million users.

This also falls in line with the mobile discovery trend long-espoused in this column. It's now taking on new forms with growing smartphone penetration, and a Groupon-fueled hunger for the deals infused with apps carrying the SoLoMo banner.

—Michael Boland, " Discovering the Right SoLoMo Formula: http://searchenginewatch.com/3642010," Search Engine Watch, March 11, 2011

One of the panel moderators at Social-Loco cited a term coinage by noted Silicon Valley investor John Doerr that's more useful to understanding what Google is up to than the concept "social" alone: SoLoMo, or social + location + mobile.

—Thomas Claburn, " Google Defines Social Strategy: http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/google/229403001," InformationWeek, May 6, 2011

I last wrote about Social Local Mobile Search (there's a moutful) in October of last year.

—Tony Gentile, " Google buys Dodgeball; SoLoMo gets a parent: http://www.buzzhit.com/2005/05/google-buys-dodgeball-solomo-gets.html," buzzhit!, May 12, 2005