I agree these companies are more for entertainment and socializing than "solving a problem". You can easily argue the twitter doesn't solve a specific problem, as with most geolocation services it is merely a tool for sharing information.
Having said that I think there is a real problem that can be solved using geoloction technology and that problem is "where the heck are you?". My roomate and I moved to a new city recently and had an terrible time coordinating meetups with people. To solve our problem we created a simple web app. We posted it on HN a couple days ago http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1607982
Comments
I agree these companies are more for entertainment and socializing than "solving a problem". You can easily argue the twitter doesn't solve a specific problem, as with most geolocation services it is merely a tool for sharing information. Having said that I think there is a real problem that can be solved using geoloction technology and that problem is "where the heck are you?". My roomate and I moved to a new city recently and had an terrible time coordinating meetups with people. To solve our problem we created a simple web app. We posted it on HN a couple days ago http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1607982