Is ‘checking in’ dead?
According to some recent data, geolocation sites like Foursquare and Gowalla are not all they were cracked up to be.
Just when you thought the “check-in” was the latest, greatest social media trend that would never ever go away, ReadWriteWeb has declared it dead.
Let us take a moment of silence—and another moment to check in that we’ve just taken a moment of silence.
The list of less popular social check-in sites reads like the curriculum at a clown college: Gowalla, Loopt, BriteKite. Then there are the big boys: FourSquare, Facebook Places, Google, and Yelp.
Detractors have questioned why people would want to fill the ether with mundane life activities. Of course, people said the same thing about Twitter and Facebook. And numerous big brands have used the service successfully, including Zagat and Louis Viutton with Foursquare, and Onitsuka Tiger with Foursquare Places. (Here’s a collection of how other brands have used Foursquare.) The website Sprout Social also explained how smaller brands can use location-based services to compete with national ones.
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