Local social platform Geomium has announced the roll-out of its location-based services across the UK. The expansion follows its London launch at the end of September, which has so far seen more than 100,000 downloads of the Geomium iPhone app.

Geomium is a web platform and iPhone app that lets users connect with friends, meet new people and see the latest bars, restaurants, deals and events in their local area, in real time. Geomium founder Michael Ferguson believes the company is the first to combine such powerful local data with real time location features, and the UK roll-out is part of a plan to make location-based services mass market. He says: “We’ve been amazed by the response to our London launch, but our most common feedback was ‘When is it coming to my town?’ “People love the idea of planning their nights out and chatting with friends using just the one app, so we have taken the decision to roll out Geomium across the UK.”

Geomium users set their privacy at registration and the default setting is for no one to be able to see your real-time location whereabouts. But around 75 per cent of Geomium users so far have actively chosen to have an open profile.

“Privacy is massively important for any location-based service and we wanted to be completely upfront with our privacy settings, as we realised that some people might not want to reveal their location online,” says Ferguson. “But for three-quarters of users to choose an open profile suggests that people are more open to the idea of sharing location that one might have thought.”

Even if users chose not to share their location with online contacts, Geomium is still a useful social planner. The company says it aggregates more local content than any other service, so a user will still be able to see all the bars, restaurants, events money-off deals in their local area, either as a feed or on a map.

Geomium also comes with a suite of other social features that allow a user to explore an area, check-in to locations, highlight their favourite places, give a ‘shout out’ to friends and meet new people. Geomium is accessed via the web or the iPhone app, with additional apps for Android, Blackberry, Nokia and other platforms to follow shortly. Users are able to log-in directly or via their Facebook account to connect with their friends on Facebook.