SCOTT TREPANIER

Becoming more aware of the location-aware trade-off

I just returned from SXSWi and it’s abundantly clear that location aware technologies such as Foursquare and Gowalla have replaced Twitter, Friendfeed and other real-time update services and the hot tech item du’jour.  Indeed in the days following the show, anecdotal data tells me that Foursquare adoption is increasing.  A few days ago I heard CNET’s Caronline McCarthy spreading the Foursquare gospel on NPR, and in the past 48hrs several friends I would squarely place in non-early adopters camp have friended me on the service. Are we approaching the hockey stick moment?

Back to SXSW…It was pretty remarkable to watch the hordes of social media pros and digerati race to check in at each session and venue, in an effort to let the world know that they were there and you weren’t…except if you just took the time to look around you realized that you could see most of your “friends,” so it seemed a little redundant.  And in my race to join the cool kids, I started to realize the whole check in process required effort; it was sucking my time and it was distracting me from of all things, socializing with the people around me.  This is when I started to question the utility and meaningfulness of the service.

But let’s take a step back.  I can’t remember the exact date, but a year or so ago I first downloaded Foursquare (admittedly, I’ve never used Gowalla).  At the time, the service hadn’t scaled to a point to serve any real purpose for me, at least in little ol’ Portland.  I had a few friends who were using the service, but not enough to justify regular use.  I set it to the side and figured I’d give it time to mature and dive in a few months later.  Early this year I decide to give it another go, and to my surprise the user base (at least w/in my social circle) had grown large enough to warrant more experimentation.  So, I started to play around, I dipped my toe in the proverbial water.  The first time I earned a “badge” I was hooked.  The idea of turning real-life into a game was appealing and being able to compare my stats to those of my friends increased my motivation to not only check-in, but get out to new places, if anything just to show everyone else how interesting and man-about town I was. Disclaimer: anyone who know me well, knows that I’m a certified homebody, except when I’m hiking with the dog or out for a run.

The Foursquare honeymoon continued…I continued to accumulate badges and evangelize to my friends, singing the praises of the next big tech thing.  Fast forward to SXSW and my aha moment.

It was late in the evening, or should I say early in the morning at the Cheezeburger party and I was chatting with a few bloggers from a super well known outlet.  I had never really heard any passionate critiques of the check-in movement, but then someone (not to be named) said something pretty simple, but powerful: “I just don’t really get anything from it.”  Simple enough, right?  But think about it for a second we’re sending tons of info these check-in services and what are we getting in return?  An ego-massage…an occasional offer for a free or discounted drink.  Here are a few things to consider:

• “Checking-in” isn’t easy.  The GPS is rarely accurate, so you have to self-select your venue.  This needs to be improved significantly.
• Even when you select the venue, there’s often multiple duplicate entries. How is this helpful if I’m trying to earn a “reward” or deal from my check-in venue of choice?  These guys got to get a system in place to verify businesses…maybe something similar to Twitter’s verified user program.
• The pay-off sucks.  One you get past the aforementioned ego-massage, there’s really very little value for the user.  I’ve yet to run into a friend at a venue because Foursquare gave me a heads-up.  To be fair, this could because I’m lame and don’t have many friends on the service, but what does that mean for newbies?  IMHO, people will abandon the service pretty quickly if they don’t see an immediate return on investment.

This post is already long enough, so I’ll get to the take-away.  Am I ready to give up on Foursquare altogether? No.  Will I be the raving fan I was a few months ago? Definitely not.  Maybe it’s time to set it aside again and wait for the service to take the next step.  

What do you think?  Are check-in services worth the effort?