If one thing’s certain about the future of the social media web, it’s that it’s going to become more locally oriented.

Whereas in the past, people have flocked en masse to global platforms like Facebook and MySpace, the coming years will bring more location-based programs, such as Foursquare, that provide a direct link to your surroundings. (Still waiting on that Twitter geolocation deal.)

Mobile apps are likely to be the next growth area for location-based social media. In fact, if you live in a big city, it’s likely that local developers have created various smartphone apps to help you get around town, share restaurant recommendations, interact with the local media, and so forth.

But with so many hundreds of thousands of apps out there, how do you find ones that are relevant to where you live?

Set for launch next month, Appify will help users find city-specific apps and promote the ones they like to friends.

For example, Postabon allows New Yorkers to find in-store deals within walking distance. BikeFixTO helps Toronto cyclists find places to get their rides repaired.

In Kansas City, where Locker Partner is based, there aren’t too many local-centric apps beyond the basics: weather, news, sports. But as the iPhone-equipped 1960s Buick in the photo that started this entry shows, we’re getting there.

Photo taken with my iPhone at 18th and Wyandotte in the Crossroads District.

Via RWW.

Every beer drinker worth his or her suds knows Stella Artois — the Belgian lager served up in gold-rimmed goblets in bars from Brussels to Burbank. But who knew the brand had such incredible tech- and social-media savvy?

First, the app. Stella is calling its Le Bar Guide iPhone app the “first global 3D augmented reality iPhone bar guide.” Using your iPhone’s built-in camera and lacing its feed of the outside world with map directions and signposts, Le Guide directs you to the nearest bars that pour Stella. Once inside, Stella in hand, you can rate the bar within the app, post a message for other users to see and, if you’ve had a few too many, call a cab. It’s both practically useful and highly effective at getting the Stella Artois brand — and bubbles — on the customer’s brain. [Via Fast Company]

Out of left field (or the Left Bank, as the case may be) comes the adventurous beer company’s other new campaign. Resembling the efforts of other brands that have created entire fictional worlds to market their product through entertainment forms (see also White Gold), this is a fully realized viral video campaign that conveys — via oddball humor and chic retro-parody — Stella Artois’ emphasis on ecological responsibility.

Hosted by dapper Alain Du Monde and featuring a go-go Mother Earth who reclines on a hanging sofa, Le Recyclage De Luxe Show mimics a 1960s French variety show, complete with jazzy music, comedy sketches and dancing girls. It was devised by ad group Mother London, which launched a dedicated YouTube channel to add episodes over time. It’s pretty hilarious and appealing, though perhaps too artsy for the average Joe Sixpack. It’s certainly, definitely more interesting than a generic magazine or TV ad or beer sign hanging in the bar window. [Via Creative Review]

This is stuff you can interact with, enjoy and share all on its own merit — and without feeling like the product’s being shoved down your throat. Though in the case of Stella Artois, that may not be a bad thing.