28th
After reading a great article about how GeoSocial apps have to become passive before they will reach their full potential, I came across these shoes that check in for you. Effectively making the experience as passive as it could possibly get - just walk in the door and you’re checked in. There are also apps like Future Checkin (iTunes Link) that will run in the background on your iPhone to check you in automatically.
As it stands, only 4% of internet users have tried one of the many location based services and only 1% use them more than once a week (according to Forrester Research).
While I do think that it has to get easier (it really is lame to pull out your phone to check in), I don’t want them to take the fun out of it either. Part of the reason I use Gowalla is because of their virtual Geocaching-type game that they have included. If you take the engagement away, all you have is a paper trail of where I’ve been and what’s the fun in that?
“Casey Halverson’s setup lets him to automatically check-in to a venue by just walking in the front door. How he does this is extremely rudimentary, but it demonstrates what’s possible. Location aware sneakers remind us of Blue GPS shoes, or satellite-monitored footwear for hikers and soldiers who fear being kidnapped.”
(via Wearable Computing: Check-In Here on Foursquare (via Nike+) | MobileBehavior)
