Location Based App Roundup: Checking Out Checking-In!
Check out my new location based device!
Like I said yesterday, it’s hard to decide what location based apps to target for a business. So, here is a quick roundup of some options available today. How did I choose which apps to include? Simple. I went through the Apple App store and downloaded all the location based apps I could find.
I didn’t review any paid apps or apps that required text messages because I’m cheap and don’t have text messaging in my blood (or on my account for that matter). Plus, I don’t want myself or my friends to be spammed with text messages. (Loopt has done it in the past.)
So, what makes a good location based app that your business should target? Some keys are:
- The apps have to take very little time because when people use them, they’re out enjoying themselves. If checking-in takes so long that it gets in the way of enjoying themselves, most people won’t use it.
- The apps have to be fun and rewarding to the users. If the users don’t enjoy them or don’t feel like they’re getting something out of them, they won’t use them regularly.
- They need critical mass. If the apps aren’t being used by enough people in your area or customer demographic, what’s the point? Your business won’t get much exposure.
- They need to update other services like Facebook or Twitter to spread the word about your business as much as possible.
Gowalla (iPhone)This is a fun app that’s easy to use, quick and rewards users by giving them pins for different accomplishments. It has a decent user base, but it’s iPhone only, so that limits the potential users at the moment. It does update Facebook and Twitter though.
Personal Verdict: Kept because I’m still enjoying this one and it’s easy. One of my personal favorites.
Business Verdict: I’d recommend targeting this service if you were targeting multiple services or noticed a particularly large amount of Gowalla users near your business.
Foursquare (all internet capable mobile phones)Great app. It’s fun to use, gives users badges for different accomplishments and awards the most frequent visitor of each location with the title of mayor. It allows updates to Twitter and Facebook. On top of all that, they’re allowing 3rd party developers to use their API’s and businesses are already giving rewards to their users, so this one has a lot of business potential.
Personal Verdict: Kept because I’m still enjoying this one and it’s easy. This one is neck and neck with Gowalla for me.
Business Verdict: This is my top choice since it is available on most mobile phones, has a large user base and rewards users for visiting a lot of businesses, encourages users to leave tips about those locations and rewards them for being the most frequent visitor of a business. Plus with the API’s and the early adoption by some businesses, this one looks like it has more longterm potential than the others.
MyTown (iPhone)MyTown is more game focused than the other location-based social apps. It allows you to check-in at locations, buy places you visit, collect rent for those locations, upgrade your locations to collect more money and increase your levels. This encourages you to continuously log into the app to collect rent. It also allows you to update your Facebook account.
MyTown is less well known than Gowalla and Foursquare, but claims to have half a million users and six times as many check-ins as Foursquare.
Personal Verdict: I kept it for now, but mainly because I’m interested to see what is added to this app. If it doesn’t evolve, I’ll be deleting this one fairly soon. It just feels like a time sink to me.
Business Verdict: It has some decent exposure, but it is only available on the iPhone. It also seems like a lot of work, so people might get burned out on this one. I’d say wait and see where this one goes.
BrightKite (all mobile phones)I’ve had this app installed on my iPhone for months before the rest. Brightkite allows you to check-in to locations, post a comment and/or a photo. It posts to Twitter, Facebook and Flickr for you, if you want. That’s pretty much it. It was interesting when I first installed it, but I quickly became bored with it. That’s mostly because there are rarely other BrightKite users posting in my area, so I don’t get much benefit from using it. Plus, there aren’t any virtual badges or pins or any stats to look at. It definitely needs some cool new features to make it fun to use again.
Personal Verdict: Deleted since it doesn’t offer as much as the other apps.
Business Verdict: Pass. Not enough users and not as good for discovering businesses or rewarding loyal customers.
Flook (iPhone)In Flook, you take a photo of a place, tag it and the photos (which they call cards) are viewable by people near the location. Unfortunately, with a camera as bad as the iPhone has, that feature is useless in bad light. On top of that, I’m not sure I want to go places and then spend time flipping through photos of nearby things to see what is worth doing.
Personal Verdict: Deleted because it’s too much work and just wouldn’t work well in many cases on my iPhone.
Business Verdict: If you have an iPhone, some spare time and want to add some pictures of your business to it, go ahead. Besides that, it’s a pass.
Yelp (all internet capable mobile phones)This is hardly a new application. Everyone knows Yelp because of its reviews. I’ve used Yelp a lot over the years and it’s been very useful. Recently, they added the ability to check-in at businesses. The only reward for doing that is that if you check-in more than others, you are marked as a regular. In that way, it is similar to Foursquare and its mayorships. If you already use Yelp to find out about businesses and leave reviews, then it’s a single extra click to check in as well. If you don’t, then this is one to skip because other than being marked a regular if you go somewhere often, there isn’t much to recommend it.
Personal Verdict: Kept because I like using Yelp to find restaurants and other businesses when I’m traveling. I probably won’t use it too often to check-in though.
Business Verdict: If you have a business, you’re probably already on Yelp, whether you know it or not. This is one to pay attention to because of the large base of users Yelp has.
The Bottom Line
So, in the end, I really enjoy Gowalla and Foursquare. I’ll probably drop MyTown and stop checking-in on Yelp before long. For businesses that don’t have much time, I’d focus on Foursquare and Yelp. Foursquare because it’s innovative, has a large user base and is already focused on serving businesses. Yelp because it already has a massive user base and a ton of existing reviews that people consult regularly. Now I’m not saying you have to ignore the other services. If you have time, you can dabble in a few of the others, but if you need to focus your efforts, I recommend Foursquare, Yelp and if you have time, Gowalla. (What can I say, I enjoy Gowalla and want businesses to support it. Call me selfish.)
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I used Brightkite regularly until Foursquare came along. I still have Brightkite on my iPhone, though. Just in case.
The big difference between the two, speaking purely in terms of checking in, is that Brightkite’s got a much bigger database than Foursquare. I find myself checking with the Foursquare website before I go out to make sure the places I’m going are listed on their service. If they’re not, I can add them, which is good. But since the database is made up of user-contributed entries, sometimes the information isn’t entirely accurate. I’ve also seen duplicate entries for some businesses. That’s never happened with Brightkite. However, Foursquare’s ability to allow user-submitted locations is also cool ’cause you can add stuff that’s not necessarily “in the book.” For example, I’ve added the parking structures in downtown San Luis to Foursquare. Another local user has added different buildings of the local University to Foursquare. None of that would be possible with Brightkite.