Location, location, location

By | January 17, 2010

I’ve been using three location-based services recently on my iPhone. They are Gowalla, Foursquare and Brightkite. All of them have there differences, but all are pretty neat too.

Gowalla

  • The user interface is beautifully designed
  • Works like geo-caching, except you’re discovering and dropping virtual items
  • Using my 3GS iPhone, it pin points my location using GPS, so I don’t need to know the actual address
  • Has a “Trips” feature where you can create or join trips that have been made in your city. For example a pub crawl or historic walk.

Foursquare use in Franklin, TNFoursquare

  • It’s been around longer, so more people are using it which makes it more fun
  • The Tips section is fantastic. Just the other night I enjoyed some terrific butternut squash soup at Firefly Grille.
  • Today I was offered free gnocchi from the Red Pony in Franklin, TN. (pictured here) —>

Brightkite

  • Has been around way longer than the others, but doesn’t have the “play” aspect as the other two.
  • Use your RSS feed from Brightkite and embed it in Google Maps for a fun, interactive map.

What are you using?

Which do you prefer and why?


Enjoy it? Please share it.

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  • http://metamarketer.com/ Kate O'

    And now Yelp has a check-in feature too:

    http://officialblog.yelp.com/2010/01/youre-gonn…

    I downloaded the app update last night and will be trying it out today. I've been checking in on both Gowalla and Foursquare for the past few weeks, but when I only have time for one, I check in on Foursquare. I like the mayorships, the points, and the whole game feel. I haven't checked in on Brightkite in ages. Did you see Kidd Redd's post about his Foursquare experience with Tasti D-Lite?

    http://kiddredd.com/2010/01/14/sprinkles-nearby/

    And Mashable wrote about that program, too:

    http://mashable.com/2010/01/13/tasti-d-lite-tas…

    Interesting stuff is afoot.

  • http://www.davemadethat.com Dave Delaney

    Good point. Hmmm…
    Which do you prefer Kate?

  • http://metamarketer.com/ Kate O'

    Well, like I mentioned, I've been tending to favor Foursquare. But I'm interested in seeing how Yelp shakes out once I give it a try. Do you have a favorite?

  • http://www.davemadethat.com Dave Delaney

    I'm really enjoying fourseven now more than the rest.

    I'm still on the fence though.

    D

  • http://www.thesilvagroup.net/ Kenny Silva

    I really like foursquare, as I'm sure you could tell during the Predators game last night. However, I keep forgetting to update the darn thing whenever I go somewhere!

    I am slightly concerned that my Twitter followers will get annoyed by 4square location announcement spam. Have you run into that problem, Dave?

  • http://www.davemadethat.com Dave Delaney

    Thanks. Nobody has complained yet, but I don't always tweet my
    location. You can choose not to if you prefer.

  • http://danieljohnsonjr.com danieljohnsonjr

    You can go into settings and uncheck boxes that notify when you've unlocked a badge or become Mayor, etc. I did that because I felt I was spamming my Twitter and Facebook streams too much. I still share my location.

    I had to do something similar last year. I update my Twitter status a lot, and it was being sent to my Facebook feed. I got some complaints from genuine friends, and I figured it was worth it to disconnect my Twitter feed from my Facebook feed.

    As alway, YMMV.

  • http://www.davemadethat.com Dave Delaney

    Good point Daniel, thanks.
    You can also use
    http://apps.facebook.com/selectivetwitter/ to post directly from
    Twitter to Facebook when you use #fb.

    LinkedIn also can be configured this way using their built in setting.
    In that case you use #in.

    D

  • http://www.davemadethat.com Dave Delaney

    So strange that I never replied to you here Kenny. I apologize.
    Perhaps I did, but for some reason it didn’t save. Hmmm…

    I don’t usually share my check-ins on Twitter or Facebook, but save the annoyance only for my foursquare friends. However, occasionally I may decide to share a check-in with the world.

    Are you still enjoying foursquare?