Nov. 4, 2010 at 12:18 AM ET
Do what you will with the following information: Four percent of Americans use location-based check-in services such as Foursquare and Gowalla, according to a new report by Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. But among Americans on the Internet, a noteworthy 10 percent of Hispanics use these services, way more than online white people (three percent of whom use them) and online black people (at five percent).
What may not surprise you much is that the highest concentration of internet users on the services comes from the 18- to 29-year-old demographic, while those over 65 make up the sparsest group. It's fairly evenly distributed across income and education levels, though men outnumber women two-to-one on the services.
I am willing to bet that there's a huge jump in all of these numbers next time Pew conducts the survey and Facebook Places is the reason. Even before the company rolled out the Deals incentive program and other goodies, the service was blowing up.