Check-in Mania!

How many check-in apps do you have on your smartphone? I have three: Foursquare, Gowalla, and CauseWorld. Just today I learned about two more apps, Shopkick and GetGlue. It seems as though check-in apps are being built up as the next big thing for smartphones, but I got to wonder, just how many different check-in apps do we want on our smartphones? Apps like Foursquare initially became popular as a way for people to let their friends know where they are and to find friends near their current location. The apps then turned the check-in process into a bit of a game by providing electronic awards to those who check-in at a location the most times. Competitive types work hard to become a Foursquare mayer of a location. Retailers are now getting in to the check-in game by using them to provide coupons, using them to entice you into their stores. Perhaps one of the redeeming values of Foursquare and Gowalla is that they at least required you to physically go near a place in order to check-in, but GetGlue is more insidious because you use it to check-in to tv shows, movies, games, or books, which are things you can do within the confines of your home. Ok, it might be cool see what tv shows my friends like, but it also seems a bit to me like using Twitter to constantly tell everyone what you are eating. Truth is, while I have Foursquare, Gowalla, and CauseWorld on my Nexus One, I often forget to use them to check-in when I am out and about. The app I make the most effort to use is CauseWorld with the hope that the few minutes I take to use it to check-in might actually help someone who needs help. These three apps that I don't use very much take up storage space on my Nexus One, and it seems every day a new check-in app is announced to try, threatening to suck up more of the precious storage space on my phone. Sooner or later the number of new check-in apps has to slow down, right?

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Check-in Mania!

Frank McPherson

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Frank McPherson