With all the location based social networks available it makes sense to try them all out, especially if you have friends who use different services. It can be a pain, however, to open several different apps on your phone to check in to each service individually. That’s where check.in comes in. Their service automatically checks you in on Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite, Whrrl and TriOutNC with just a few clicks.
Check.in is an HTML5 based service that runs in the browser of your iPhone, iPad or Android phone, but it looks and acts much like a standalone app. You can sign up and get started directly from your phone at m.check.in. You’ll be taken directly to your settings where you can add an account. Once you’ve entered your accounts, check.in will search for nearby places. Click a venue in the list to start the checkin process.
Check.in uses “magical place matching” to correlate the venues between all the different services. If the service isn’t able to match the venues automatically you’ll see a short list of venues it thinks you might be looking for. It will learn your choices for future checkins. I’ve been using it for a few months and it usually does a very good job at matching venues the first time around.
You’ll be taken to a checkin screen showing the different venues it found across all the services. You can add a shout or note to your checkins from this screen if you desire. Twitter and Facebook sharing options are set in the settings and can’t be changed on a per-checkin basis.
Clicking the “check in” button will do exactly what it says. You’ll receive a confirmation once you’re checked in. Foursquare checkins will also display the relevant information that Foursquare normally passes back, such as the current mayor, your number of checkins and any badges or points you may have earned.
Check.in was built by the team at Brightkite.
In my trials, I’ve found that check.in is often fairly slow, but is much easier than opening 3-4 different apps to check in each time I visit a venue. If you use multiple services, give it a try and let us know what you think in the comments.
This video from check.in shows the service in action:
check.in Teaser from Martin May on Vimeo.
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