New Social Media Apps Let Users Check-In to More Than Just Their Favorite Coffee Shops

There are a few social check-in apps, however, these are all mainly location based. This means that you use them on your mobile device when you arrive somewhere and it uses you device's GPS to know where you are and to check you in.

[caption id="attachment_7203" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="A Screen Shot of GetGlue"][/caption]

You can then use these kinds of apps to tell your friends where you are, where you visit most and also, to earn virtual rewards.

Not all people are comfortable with sharing their location using applications such as Foursquare or Facebook's new Places feature. However, they are comfortable with sharing things like their favorite TV shows, books or when they go to see a movie.

The good news is, there are apps that let you do just that. They are "check-in" apps, however, instead of using a location based system, they are geared toward more solitary pursuits. These apps let users earn virtual rewards and meet fans with similar interests.

Users can also push their check-ins to other sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. This means that the apps work just like Foursquare, Gowalla etc. but they don't use your locations as the basis of the app.

Find out what these apps are on the next page.


Apps like this are GetGlue, Miso and Philo. They all offer the ability to do some sort of check-in of you interests. You get rewards for this and all in all, it's a great alternative to location based check-in applications.

It's also easier on the nerves. Some times, with social media applications such as Foursquare, you don't want ALL of your friends knowing where you are, rather, just a specific group. With these different applications, you don't have to worry about anyone finding you, you just share you interests.

GetGlue is the biggest of the above listed applications, boasting 550,000 users in June. It was launched in November 2009 by the New York-based company Adaptive Blue. It was launched as a browser-based recommendation engine. The mobile app was launched in June.

In June, the 550,000 users had checked in or posted a rating for something about 5 million times. That's quite a number for a new internet start-up.

GetGlue is the most wide-ranging tool in the space, it has apps for the iPhone and Google's Android operating system. Applications for the iPad and BlackBerry devices are on the way.

GetGlue ranges very far for the things that you can show your interest in, from video games to music and TV. Users can earn "stickers" as rewards for checking in. At first, you get the virtual kind which are familiar to Foursquare users, but, if you are loyal enough you will get real stickers mailed to you.

All in all, I prefer these services to the location-based ones just because I'm not sharing my physical location, but I can still earn rewards and my friends can still see what I'm doing.