The Fiducial Mark

Yelp

The big news in the location-enabled social media biz this past week was a new update from Yelp.  As described in the TechCrunch post, the latest iPhone update from Yelp now allows check-ins.  This is a great development: check-ins allow people to share their location, connect, and say what the think about where they have checked in.  All of these things are good.  They allow us to to learn about particular spaces, share our own information and experiences about them, and provide a scheme that makes us feel good about “checking in.”  At first blush, these systems work fine…

But here’s the problem: locked-in environments.  The first location-based system I started using was Gowalla.  Why?  Because, like many other people, I don’t live in NYC or Los Angeles.  I live in a small city that wasn’t on the initial Foursquare list.  That’s fine: I started using Gowalla because it doesn’t care what city you’re in and allows you to create “spots” for anywhere.  Then, in a recent development, Foursquare allowed check-ins from any city.  OK – great news, and I started to try it out.  But then came Yelp – yet another system that allows me to check-in.  So I now have three systems that I can check-in on.  All of them will allow me to update Twitter or Facebook, but they are are still independent of each other.  I can’t add a “place” to Foursquare and Gowalla at the same time.  Choosing one system means ignoring another.  And by investing my time in one system, I’ll be less inclined to join into the next system that comes along allowing check-ins.

Sooooo, here’s calling for a universal check-in system.  Why is it that I have to choose between Yelp, Foursquare, or Gowalla?  Should I not be able to check in on a phone, and then that data gets shared with every location-based Social Media program I have subscribed to?  Interoperability will provide these products with features to differentiate on other than the ability to check-in.  And I suppose that’s the good thing about such a dynamic market space: greater competition and adoption will (hopefully) reward providers that support and promote interoperability.