@christineptran

Why should I check in? (Location-based apps)

Why should I use a location-based app, like Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, Brightkite, or Yelp to check in? Here are the reasons I’ve heard so far:

• Serendipitous meetings with friends nearby: I will know when a friend is down the street, at a bar next door, or shopping in the same grocery store, and what have you – and can now arrange to meet.
• Find out where the crowd is: I will know where everybody is checking in, so I can find or avoid the hottest parties.
• Get deals from businesses within my proximity: Exclusive deals will be pushed to my phone when I walk by a local business that has signed up with the service.
• Earn badges or titles to get deals from businesses: I can check in frequently at my favorite business in order to earn the title of “Mayor” or something comparable, and possible deals.
• Earn badges or titles to compete with friends: I can participate in a friendly game of “Who has the most check ins at X, Y, Z place.”
• Learn about nearby sites and destinations: I can access useful tips and information about my surrounding areas, for example, read about a historical monument, learn the name of a structure, or see tips people have left behind about two competing restaurants.
• Take a pre-designed tour: I can take a tour (in a city, a theme park, a museum, etc.), go on a scavenger hunt, or otherwise visit a list of pre-determined sites and receive badges, answer quiz questions, and possibly earn deals along the way.
• Create a “life path” using all my check ins: I can download and analyze all my check ins to create my “life path.”

Of all the reasons to check in above, I’m most inclined to use and see the benefit of learning about nearby sites and destinations, or taking a pre-designed tour at a travel destination. As for the other reasons, they’re just not compelling enough to me yet.

Here’s, why I don’t check in:

• I’m lazy, and there are too many steps required to launch the app, find my location, check in, and write a pithy post to share with friends.
• I forget.
• I don’t actually have more than 10 friends regularly checking in.
• Too many services to check into and friends are spread across the apps.
• I don’t want to be rude and check in in front of friends who don’t “get” check ins.
• I don’t really care about badges or titles.
• I don’t think I’ll ever check in enough to become a “Mayor”.
• I don’t need to be bombarded with more ads than I already am.
• I like having truly serendipitous meetings.
• I don’t mind not knowing or “missing out.”
• I don’t know what I’d do with a “life path.”

Note that privacy is not on this list.  I’m happy sharing my location data with carefully selected friends and contacts, and set my privacy controls accordingly.

Call me when check ins stop being check ins. Location data is powerful, but check ins? Not so much.

For the record, I do check in from time to time. At least when laziness and forgetfulness don’t get in the way. I’m still hoping to see what the fuss is all about.

Here’s another take on check ins from ReadWriteWeb: Why We Check In

Geolocation, Geolocation, Geolocation!

I’m loving the idea of geolocation, and can’t wait until it becomes more widely accepted. Geolocation, or location based services (LBS), is the “identification of the real-world geographic location of an Internet-connected computer, mobile device, website visitor or other” (Wikipedia).

It’s already available on our mobile apps, for example, Yelp or Google Maps. You log on, your device asks you if it can use your current location, and you’re off – to (in theory) discover new and cool things in the nearby world around you.

What’s cooler than such basic uses of geolocation, is geolocation for social networking. For instance, if you’re using a location-enabled device, tool, or service, you can opt in to notify your social network of your current location. Google Latitude offers continuous location sharing, which allows you to connect with friends who happen to be nearby. Foursquare uses a “check-in” model instead, which may be easier for new users to stomach. Twitter and WordPress are announcing geolocation tools as well. Here’s a neat article on ReadWriteWeb about how geolocation improves Twitter.  And check out Twitter 360, a new Twitter client that really takes it to the extreme by integrating augmented reality and geotagging. Turn on your iPhone camera and see arrows indicating who is Tweeting near you. It’s just a matter of time before Facebook rolls out a more prominent, though probably less invasive, role for location too.

Honestly, I can’t wait for geolocation to become more mainstream. It may be intimidating now and remain an opt-in service for the next few years. But I anticipate that geolocation will become opt-out within 5 years, meaning that most services will set geolocation on by default. It’s the next step towards making our social networks really social. Location gives us another layer of context – a very valuable one. Just think about Facebook status updates posted by local friends or Tweets from Twitterers in the area – much more relevant.

When this happens, you’ll be able to log on to Facebook and see where your friends are posting from and how they’re moving around. Right now, I’m in Southern California for a week visiting family. On my flight down, I was scratching my head trying to remember people in the area I’d want to connect with. That doesn’t even account for the people who happen to be in town on a visit, and obviously not think to let me know.

I’ve loved Facebook ever since I first joined, because it gave me a way to stay in touch with friends who live far away. I’ve been looking forward to the day when I can say, “Hey Jennifer, I’m in Seattle finally. Let’s meet up!.” But how much more compelling will Facebook be when I can see on my news feed that Jennifer posted an update from New York City, where I happen to be for a weekend conference?

It’s a great feature for friends and family, a little less so for our wider social networks. But on Facebook, geolocation integrates well – our closest friends and family are on it, we’ve created different profiles, and we’ve set privacy controls.  That’s why geolocation will be Facebook’s “killer app.”

A Personally Curated, Mobile Newspaper

A couple weeks ago, I happily joined the iPhone bandwagon (finally!).

One of my favorite apps so far is Instapaper, which allows me to save articles to my iPhone. Any time I come across an interesting article or blog post I don’t have time to read, I simply click on a “Read Later” bookmarklet. Viola! The article is saved to my iPhone, in readable format for convenient mobile reading.

My new morning routine is to visit SF Gate, New York Times, TechMeme, and Hacker News. Open every interesting article in a new tab, and click “Read Later.” Within minutes, I have an extremely personalized newspaper which I read on my commute, while I wait in line for lunch, or any other period of downtime.

Smart phones may not be ubiquitous yet, but they will be – and this is how many of us will consume our daily news in the future. Mobile news reading offers convenient, extremely targeted, personally curated content. And for now, without the ads and all the extra noise.

I hope Instapaper adds Twitter and Facebook integration, tagging, and the ability to share a feed of curated content with others.

By the way, this recent Wired article names Instapaper as iPhone’s killer app. The first Wired article I read about Instapaper, before I got my iPhone, is here.