Social location check-in... indeed this is a technology that seems to be dominating the news, blogs, and social media streams recently.

 With so many different ways to check-in and share your location with colleagues and friends it's no wonder that selecting an app can be a challenge. It's been my observation that frequent users of social location sharing apps like foursquare and GoWalla get bored and bail on their usage, typically because of a lack of benefit for crowd-sourcing their personal information. However, another reason for usage to slip is user frustration that results from applications simply not recognizing where the user is located. When an app recognizes where the user is positioned, typically the check-in process is much faster and requires far less user input... in some cases it can be as simple as one click. If an app fails to locate what POI the user is located near the process of checking-in can be painfully tedious and down-right annoying to the end user, often resulting in the user giving up.

So, how do the social services fair?

I took it upon myself to conduct a quick, little social mobile experiment recently. The idea was that I was positioned at a well known place of interest, a place that I felt any simple-to-use checkin service should easily position me at or near for simple check-in - yes, I was sitting at a local Starbucks - what better place to hangout and boast to my social streams where I am and what I'm doing!

Using an iPhone 3G S, GPS enabled smartphone I tested 11 popular social location services by firing up the app and using the "Check-in" or locate me fucntionality. The following results were observed:

In no particular order, the following observations were made:

• Foursquare - My Starbucks location not presented as an option for where I was or what I was near
• Whrrl 3 - Starbucks was presented as the second POI option near me
• GoWalla - Starbucks presented as first POI option
• Brightkite - Starbucks presented as first POI option
• Loopt - Starbucks presented as first POI option
• PlacePop - Starbucks was the 14th option presented in a lengthy list
• WHERE - Starbucks presented as second POI option
• PegShot - Starbucks presented as first POI option
• Yelp - My Starbucks location not presented as an option for where I was or what I was near
• Tweetsii - Starbucks presented as second POI option
• DoubleDutch - My Starbucks location not presented as an option

So, if I had to rank the results based on this experiment, the following standings would prevail:

1. GoWalla
2. Brightkite
3. Loopt
4. PegShot
5. WHERE
6. Whrrl 3
7. Tweetsii
8. PlacePop
9. Foursquare
10. Yelp
11. DoubleDutch

Gowalla is coming on strong. It presented our location (Starbucks) near the top and offers a quick, fun user experience. Ideally a faster way to include a photo or video would make GoWalla even more awesome

Obviously, results will likely vary depending on the metropolitan area where the user is located, the place of interest the person is at, the type of mobile device being used, and the number of previous check-ins that have taken place at that particular location.

I've been a long-time, relatively active user of mobile, social check-in apps, however, I admit that I am getting a little bored with crowd-sourcing my location. Like many others, I find there's really very little return on investment for my efforts, I'm rarely, if ever at all, presented with any compelling reason to check-in (like a freebie or discount offer) and I rarely am presented with any social benefit based on my position (like informing me about others with similar interest that are near me). I am a firm believer though that for an social application to be sticky, it definitely HAS to recognize where I am and what I'm near, otherwise there's simply too much effort for the relatively small pay back. Ideally, I'd also like the application to allow me to save a history of places I've checked in, enable me to check-in to multiple services with one click, and allow me to also include a photo or video with my check-in... these are basic requirements to keep me interested.

Related Articles:

• Geo Social Location Checkin to Twitter from iPhone - So many choices  
• Is Location enabled Social Location and Check in Getting Boring?
• Social Location Feature - Twitter & GeoAPI's Great Land Rush Of 2010
• 10 Mobile, Geo Social Location-Aware Apps To Watch in 2010
• Location-Aware iPhone Apps with Twitter Connect
• Directory of location-aware Social Services