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Check-in lately? Not long ago this may have been an odd question to ask someone, but the term is quickly growing commonplace, as location-based social networking becomes quite the trend. Using smartphone apps like Foursquare, MyTown, Loopt, and Gowalla, the always-connected crowd announce their present location to their friends at the press of a touch-screen button. Along with “geo-tagging” themselves, they may earn digital rewards ranging from badges to virtual money, or battle it out to earn some variation of a title that essentially translates to King of the Hill.
The game angle is meant to be addictive in a low-commitment way. MyTown comes off as a hybrid of Monopoly and Farmville, as users “buy” real world properties in a quest to build their own mini virtual metropolises. With Foursquare, people race to get exclusive badges and fight for the title of Mayor of a particular venue. Whether the gaming gag is the hook that lures the mainstream masses in, or the twee element that keeps them away, remains to be seen. That our geeky early adopter friends are all over these things does not surprise us in the least. That we see some regular people, including at least a few casual-game loving soccer moms, playing along is rather more intriguing.
This being America, the hop-step-jump from charming early days to full-on corporate infiltration is already underway. In Starbucks’s new partnership with Foursquare, mayors of individual coffeeterias can unlock a special Mayor Offer and enjoy perks like $1 off a Frappuccino. MyTown, partnering with retailer H&M, rewards users with exclusive in-game content when they are physically close to a store. Hoping to draw in the urban explorer, Gowalla has created a Trips feature that allows businesses, like the Washington Post and National Geographic, to create branded, location-specific walking tours.
Fad? Maybe. But that’s the marketing game, where first-mover publicity often more than makes up for the minimal reach of the nascent vehicle itself. As long as these newfangled social networks keep finding ways to keep the consumer experience engaging, folks will continue to bury their noses in their smartphones and marketers will be keen to play along with them. Our verdict: Go ahead, have a little fun with it. There’s something about the mobile-casual game-location mash up that feels right.
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