Location-based services (LBS) specifically in terms of social networks, frequently mobile, are currently a thing that I study. Not because I am particularly interested in location information (though it could graph well), nor mobile devices (I really hated phones, until my iPhone and now it is more of a strong dislike instead of an outright hate), nor because I am interested in all the location based social networks that are trying so hard to be something real, and haven’t managed, nor because I am afraid of big government/big corporations knowing where I am all the time.

One thing I am interested in is how a new LBS seems to be showing up every day, and how this is clearly far too many social networks, especially in an area where none of them have really taken off (Loopt & Brightkite possibly being the closest). So, with the help of this great list I spent some hours finding launch dates for all of the services on the list.

A note on methodology. Launch dates for many of these services are not clear/well documented/easily locatable. Many of these companies have tried to erase their real start dates, have “re-launched” their services, and try to seem “new” for quite some time. Additionally, private betas, public betas, public launches, and pre-beta releases are common. I have attempted to find launch dates that are representative of public system launches, including betas and even very large public betas. For systems where I could find only a month and year, Numbers assigned the launch date to be the first of the month. While not all of these dates are accurate to the day, I believe the overall picture is what I was looking for. So, onto the graphs.

First off, I expected this to be exponential in nature. It’s not.

Really, it’s linear as long as you just get rid of the outlier services (Anything before 2006). Also marked on this chart are three events that seem important to the growth of such applications, the launch of the Facebook platform, the iPhone App Store/SDK release, and FireEagle’s beta. Many of the services on the list are facebook apps, iPhone apps, or rely on FireEagle’s location technology to work, which is why I added these three markers, yet as you can see, they don’t actually influence the creation rate, which stays steady over the last three years.

Hopefully, this can be of use to someone.