Tag: Check-in »

LoSo, a location-based restaurant and bars app which bills itself as a combination of FourSquare and Yelp, has announced a complete redesign as part of the version 2.0 update. New features include user profiles, as well as a real-time news feed linked to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

The most significant new addition is the What's Up! feature, which allows users to take photos or videos of local bars and restaurants and instantly upload them to your Facebook page, the restaurant's Facebook page, and LoSo's listings. The app also allows users to check out menus, drink specials and happy hour deals of all participating businesses within 10 miles of their current location. Checking in at participating businesses grants QRewards Points, which can be redeemed for free food and drinks, as well as other prizes.

LoSo is currently testing in the Philadelphia and Boston markets, and will be expanding to Washington D.C, Chicago and Dallas soon.

Ahh Check-In Social Networking apps. There are a lot of them aren't there? All vying for users and their precious time to actually check in wherever they go. There's another one on the horizon now aiming to provide something even more useful than before. It's called Locai and it's just reached its 2.0 release having just added Twitter integration and custom checkin messages.

Essentially it's an app that hopes to make checking in more sociable. It aims to let conversations develop around check-in locations thus enabling people to get to know each other through the app and their common interest of the location they're at. That is providing they're already following them via Twitter, Facebook or the app itself. Users can also ask questions and post images, not just enter text. Conversation discovery allowing people to get to know each other by finding nearby conversations is also set to be added soon.

It's an interesting idea and one that I suspect will work quite well at large conventions. I know I've been to a few gaming events and found myself unsure if I know someone or not thanks to only ever following them on Twitter. Something like Locai would be a great way of breaking the ice.

Locai is out now and is a free app. Give it a try and see if it can usurp the almighty Foursquare.

With the recent hybridization of social networking and location sharing applications such as FourSquare and Facebook, it has become increasingly common to share your whereabouts with the entire world at all times.  The problem is, this can also prove to be a double edged sword, because not only are you sharing where you are, but this also points out where you are NOT.

For example, if I were a web-connected criminal of the 21st century (though I am not, rest assured), I might view a FourSquare check-in from the secluded island resort where you are vacationing as a "please burgle my house" notification.  This is the exact reason why I have not taken part in these social networking experiments.  If big brother is already looking at you, why make it easier, right?

At the risk of sounding like a paranoid mess, I can see the merits of the aforementioned FourSquare and Facebook tools -- the problem is that there is no control over who you are sending the notifications to.  This is where a brilliant new app BePut from Grip'd steps in.  The developer best sums up the application's functionality this way:

"Send driving directions of your exact location to whomever you want. Whether you want to invite your friends to a secret party or tell your client where to meet, Be Put works. Recipients receive a secure and unique “FindMe” key that is required for getting directions...

...Best of all, if you send your location to a friend who doesn’t have the app, they can still get directions with no hassle." -- VIA Be Put Development Blog

I can only imagine that this would be the dream of poor navigators like myself.  No longer am I limited to following the crummy directions of my friends, because with a click of the button I can get a location and turn by turn walk-through at a moment's notice.  Better yet, you don't have to be sharing this information with the entire world in the process.  So if you really love your navigationally challenged friends, go out and get this app now.  I, erm, I mean THEY will all thank you for it later.

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It seems that everyone theses days is checking into every location that they go near, whether they enter or not. While I understand that getting people into stores is a store owners dream, the real goal, which is what MyTown would like to exploit, is to have them pick up and buy products.

“Location is just a way to drive them to the store, but ultimately people want to actually be able to sell products, so this is one step away, getting closer to the finish line to point of sale.” Booyah’s founder Keith Lee says. “And that’s really where we want to go in terms of validating activities that you do in the real world.”

To validate products, the new update makes MyTown the first location based check-in app that includes a barcode scanner like the one that you see in RedLaser. Using the iPhone's camera, users can scan codes and instantly unlock any points or promotions that the item has stored.

Ultimately, Keith Lee wants users to be able to walk into places like Wal-Mart and see various coupons that the store offers. The company doesn't have a full set of retail partners involved yet, but a few have jumped on, as well as a "very large mystery consumer products company" that will be announced in August.

Someday, Lee envisions companies starting scavenger hunts and treasure finds to drive the MyTown gameplay even further. With 2.5 million users, there probably won't be any shortage of companies that will be looking to MyTown to drive their products of the future.

There is no release date set for this update, but I'm hoping that it comes out fairly soon. The release is out now, so go get it, it's free!

[Source: TechCrunch]