Check-in Mania

When Facebook announced Places last week I wrote down some initial thoughts on how Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, etc. are going to interact with this new service and who I thought really came out on top.

After a week now of using it, here’s what I’ve concluded.

  1. It doesn’t seem like the other apps that are supposed to support Places are tying into it the way I’d hoped. Sure, they show up in my timeline, but they don’t show up in Places and I thought that was the whole point.
  2. Other location apps still rule my day to day activities. When I’m going to the grocery store, getting coffee, or headed out to the gym, I still use Check.in to check-in to the various other 3rd party apps. Mostly because I like the gaming aspects of each of the different apps and it’s fun to see how I’m stacking up. The other major reason is my friend counts. On Foursquare, Gowalla, etc., I currently only have a few friends. So, checking in at the coffee place isn’t such a big deal. But who wants to share that with their 300+ Facebook friends? Do I really want everyone I ever knew from high school realizing I have no social life? So I’ll save Places for the special occasions.

It’s that second reason that’s the most important.

I’ve already heard that developers are hard at work on creating apps that mimic Foursquare’s mayorships and Gowalla’s stickers. And with Facebook’s recent acquisition of Hot Potato, you’ll soon be able to check into movies, TV shows, video games, etc through Places. So, stay tuned. I just might change my mind again in another month.

Update: Just so I have it straight in my head -

  • Check.in (Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite, & Whrrrl) - everyday things (coffee, gym, etc)
  • Get Glue - TV shows, video games, books, movies
  • Yelp - restaurants & fast food
  • Facebook - special events with friends and/or family

That’s how I’M using check-ins. How are you using them?

Update #2:

  • Foursquare - Special events, which then auto populate into my blog & iCal
  • Get Glue/Tunerfish/Miso - TV shows, video games, books, movies (Still torn between these 3. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses. Leaning towards Tunerfish though)
  • Yelp - Restaurants & fast food
  • Facebook - Not really using anymore because you can’t share ‘Places’ with any other media. Boo!

Who wins the ‘Check-In Wars’?

People might disagree, but right now I think Check.in wins. Read on for my reasoning.

So far the new Facebook Places check-in is a one way street. You can check-in, but it doesn’t check-out. Basically, that means that if you use Facebook’s Places feature to check into your location, it doesn’t update your other location apps (Gowalla, Foursquare, Yelp, etc.).

BUT, if you use a service like Check.in (ironically, from one of the only partners left out of the FB Places announcement - Brightkite), then you can update all your services at once (sans Yelp…for now).

An example using FB Places might go like this:

Walk into a restaurant and whip out the iPhone to use the FB app and check in. This updates my FB Places status on FB only. I’m then left with using all the other services individually to check into them because FB Places is a one-way street.

On the other hand, an example of using Check.in goes like this:

Walk into a restaurant and whip out the iPhone to use the Check.in web app. This updates my location apps: Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite, Whrrrl, & now Facebook - all at once.

I’m not sure what this all means and Facebook might make some changes in the future. But, for now, I think it’s a bit short sighted on somebody’s part.