Three reasons location-based “check in” apps suck and need to die.
- They exalt the mundane. Are you a globetrotting adventurer exploring temples in Bali? No, you’re not. You’re a web developer checking in at fucking Starbucks. Why are you highlighting how boring your life is?*
- The payoff is dubious. What do you get for all of your check-in efforts? A 15% discount. Who gives a shit? Is your time worth nothing to you? Are you that easy of a marketing target?
- They make everything else worse. Run a search on Twitter for Four Square garbage posts. They’re constant - this is the crap that’s clogging up my Twitter feed - and they’re almost entirely content-free. Tweets can be funny or poignant or interesting, but there is zero chance of that happening with these spammy cross-posts.**
* I’m not saying my life is super-exciting. It isn’t. But I try not to bore the hell out of people around me by sharing the address of the Subway where I just bought lunch.
** Twitter should block them. Seriously. It’s ruining their service.
