Enter The Hotlist, a way to automatically see what is going on through your connections on Facebook and Twitter. No check-in required. Now this I can sink my teeth into.

After the flop of WebTV, Event-Based Social Networks (EBSNs) might finally create a successful marriage between the web and TV.

It's a simple fact, people watch TV while they're online. Nearly half of Facebook users simultaneously watch TV while socializing and roughly 30 percent of all status updates on Facebook during the England-USA soccer match included a word relevant to the World Cup. Plus, Twitter connected millions of fans during the NBA Finals and the World Cup.

Leveraging these two seperate technologies, instead of trying to make TV into the web and vice-versa, could prove very successful. Popular and growing location-based services, like Foursquare, have given birth to EBSNs like Fanvibe, GetGlue, Hot Potato, Miso and Tunerfish — platforms that offer some type of live event participation through their services. 

Branded content, geolocation, gaming mechanics — I promise I'm not just stringing together social media buzzwords. Brightkite announced that they're adding gaming mechanics to their badges. Brighkite states:

Once you get to level 1, you’ll find out how to get to level 2, and so on. The idea is that its fun to be rewarded for what you do, and your friends can quickly see the things that interest you.

The biggest reason to introduce levels to our badges was so stores, bars, restaurants and brands have a way to reward you, their customers. We think a business should reward all their loyal customers, not just one person. Expect to see a range of branded badges that are both fun to earn and also give you real world rewards as you hit different levels.

Mashable reports that Brighkite is already partnering with Starbucks, the CW, Visa, Sharpie, Redbook, McDonald’s and several other brands.

Adding gaming mechanics may be the push that get's Brightkite on par with Foursquare and Gowalla.

Location-based apps have one big bump in the road to get over before they can expect the type of user activity that other social media platforms enjoy — privacy concerns. A recent suvey of more than 1,500 social network users who own geolocation-ready mobile devices revealed the following:

• 39% use geolocation on their mobile devices
• 55% of those that use geolocation tools are worried about their loss of privacy
• 45% are very concerned about letting potential burglars know when they’re away from home

The survey also found "a surprising number of users engaged in behaviors that could put themselves and their private information at risk."

LIVESTRONG, the Lance Armstrong Foundation, has teamed up with Gowalla to help build and engage their community. It will be interesting to see how many more non-profits leverage Gowalla and other check-in services.

By now we're all familiar with location-based social networks where we check-in and tell everyone where we are and what we're doing: There are articles on why we do it, Apple has a patent for one and Yahoo is buying existing location-based social networks. So no one should be surprised that some geolocation companies becoming are more specific and niche. 

With Foursquare swimming in funding could, and talk of it being too much too late, could this be another internet boom two thousand zero zero party's over, oops outta time? 

In other rumor news, location-based app Foursquare may be receiving a bulk of venture capital (according a recent article in the WSJ). The big question on everyone's mind: What will Foursquare do next? Stay tuned...

Glue, from the folks at AdaptiveBlue, is a bit different than your typical social network. Like many social networks it has a main web presence, GetGlue.com, but most of the activity happens through a toolbar in your browser and/or a mobile app.

When you surf the web and stumble on to a site like Amazon, or any site that has the widget installed, Glue will give you recommendations based on what your friends have been browsing and purchasing. You can then decide where else you would like to share it, including other social networks like Facebook. Facebook is of course trying a similar angle by encouraging the use of their own social graph. 

Glue has integrated their iPhone app to the rest of their service, giving them a location-based angle to what you're reading, listening to, watching, eating or discussing. And like Foursquare you can earn badges based on your activity.

Of course, you didn't say that out loud. Didn't have to, thanks to Avoidr.

Sure, secretly snubbing part of your Foursquare following is a little bit cold. So is tuning out check-ins. Sometimes friendships are just complicated like that, aren't they?

Fourwhere, which launched in March, integrates information from the big three location-based services. Your places and content from Gowalla, Yelp and Foursquare are conveniently pulled into Fourwhere. 

As seen in the screenshot above, each listing has a little icon indicating which service the post originated from and to get more info on the user just clicks an avatar.