Mobile Behavior: an Omnicom Group Company

As the location space heats up, various contenders are looking to for ways to differentiate themselves. This week, Brightkite, Loopt, and SCVNGR all announced new features and thinking around the way people check-in.

Brightkite's badge system now includes levels. This is similar to how Miso rewards users as either a Newbie, Fan, or Enthusiast. According to Techcrunch:

If you use their mobile website or one of their many mobile apps to post 10 photos, you’ll earn a ‘Slick pic’ badge at level 1. You can monitor your progress in a status bar on the badge, which will be visible on the web or your iPhone. Once you get to level 1, Brightkite will tell you what to do to get to level 2, and so on.

SCVNGR has introduced bump enabled social check-ins. From Mashable:

The startup has launched the “social checkin,” a new feature in the SCVNGR Android and iPhone applications that encourages friends to bump phones (or make the fist bump gesture simultaneously) to check in together at the same time and place.

It’s like a modern day version of clinking glasses or giving high fives to friends at a bar, but with a very obvious social media twist that has the potential to be both data rich and rewarding for the users who participate.

Loopt has officially rolled out automatic check-ins, called "proximity alerts," something many in this space have been expecting for a while now. According to MobileMarketingWatch:

It’s now possible to know where you’re friends are at, regardless of whether they checked-in or not. The addition takes advantage of the background location feature of the iPhone and Android platforms, and comes with explicit sharing options to manage what’s shared and how often. Only users that mutually share data with one another can receive alerts. Alerts and background location are all opt-in, so a simple settings change can turn the feature on or off. You can also choose to exclude some of your friends from your background location sharing options.

Each of these services is developing a culture, something that cannot be easily replicated. Through their decisions, they continue to define themselves both through brand partnerships and added features, attempting to capture a certain corner of the market. The space is healthy with competition, and we expect to see a lot more innovation to come.