There is no doubt that 2010 is all about mobile, geo-location and ultimately reviews, either through actually writing them or word-of -mouth generated by a check-in which is usually accompanied by a Tweet. This post is a compilation of my thoughts from a couple of events that randomly seem to fit together.

First the power of reviews and why I include them in a post entitled “Check-In Currency”. Reviews are the one area where Google knows they dramatically need to improve in order to have search become more complete. I don’t think this is conjecture on my part because it is no secret that Google recently tried to purchase the review site Yelp. When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Search is pretty awesome these days, you can search for most local businesses by name and be directed to a page that includes the phone and address, hours of operation as well as a Google Map. There will often be some pictures posted and perhaps the odd review. I don’t think you could ask for much more. However try to do the same search for local coffee shops and you get a listing of them and even though there are some ratings its tough to get a real semblance of which one is best, perhaps closest but best, I’m not so sure. So if you’re Google you don’t want to lose people to sites like Yelp, because, while you’re Google. So you first try to acquire them but get rebuffed, and know everyone realizes that reviews are worth a big pile of cash to Google and everyone cares about something Google really cares about.

Moving on to why reviews and check-ins are tied together.

Foursquare Mayor Deals

If you’re Yelp you better figure out a way to fight Google and that is going to take (1) money and (2) a dramatic increase in the number of reviews. The first part was simple enough, Yelp recently went out and raised a bundle of cash. The second part however is not so easy. But Yelp was sneaky and realized that they needed to make you think of their app every time you visited a new establishment, and as such make a review. How to get users to always think of Yelp when they went to a new spot?Yelp took a look around and realized that Foursquare was doing a pretty amazing job at making it semi cool to check-in at each location. So Yelp went ahead and released a new version of their iPhone app that takes direct aim at Foursquare’s “check-in” feature. Whereas Foursquare was not asking users to review places directly, you don’t have to work very hard to realize that each time someone checks-in and Tweets it to the world it ends up being about as good a word of mouth review as you could hope for, even better since it goes to a huge potential audience. So Yelp went right at Foursquare’s check-in feature and built it into their

iPhone application. It may or may not work but it makes me fairly certain that check-ins and reviews are going to be linked for quite some time.

Finally I’ll sum up with why this all builds to the idea of “check-in currency.”

If you’re a savvy business owner and you realize that if people Tweet every time they visit your establishment it will be great for business then you’ll put in place a system that actually rewards customers for checking-in at your establishment. Case in point both Tasti D-Lite who has added Foursquare check-ins to their loyalty program and what are now regular advertisements in the Metro newspapers (see image) that reward both check-ins and the Foursquare “Mayor” of each establishment. The establishments have now actually given check-ins a tangible value, something Foursquare has to be extremely pleased with. So check-ins now literally equal currency, it’s quite an amazing little phenomenon.


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