The Facebook game is about gamification and little else; the act of earning points by skillfully managing growing and selling crops is the draw for the wildly popular game. Another app makes a game out of creating and processing invoices. Another app gives you points for answering your emails. The list goes on and on.

Seth Priebatsch said during a keynote here said that gaming mechanics will be the dominant theme in app development in the next decade.

Near-field Communication

, or NFC, is a short-range radio technology that allows an "initiator" device (such as a smartphone) to send a signal to a target within a distance of 4 centimeters. NFC chips are being , but in the context of location-based services they could be used to automate check-ins. That is, when you want to check in at your favorite restaurant (to earn a free margarita, perhaps), you no longer have to open an app and search for the "check-in" button on your phone; your phone checks you in automatically. This alone might make people more likely to use location-based services.

Geofencing