While their usefulness is often debated, no one can deny that location-based check-in services are the new hotness. During SXSW here in Austin it was more apparent than ever. Every venue I visited I was greeted by a large crowd of geeks standing around staring at their phones. Checking in, asking if there was a specific check-in for the party, telling someone else they should be checking in- it was insanity. Add an account The sheer buzz surrounding check-ins has everyone and their mother hopping into the location pool. There are a dozen (probably more) location-based micro-status updating apps to choose from and some users are starting to suffer from check-in fatigue. Granted, it’s a silly term, but it highlights a real problem. There are just so many apps and networks to update that a simple concept like checking in can balloon into a multi-app tango requiring several minutes of your Read More

by Location-sharing is all the rage, but those of us who spread our checkins across a handful of sites are already starting to find the process daunting. Check.in, a mobile app for any phone that supports HTML5 (it looks great on the iPhone), solves that problem: It’s the first app to attempt to support a universal checkin. Today Check.in is opening up its private beta service to Mashable readers (see below). Users will be able to simultaneously check in to venues on Foursquare, Brightkite and Gowalla (experimentally in the private release) from m.check.in. Since Check.in is an HTML5 (web-based) app, it offers a slick mobile experience that rivals each of the individual mobile apps in question. After users configure their accounts, Check.in provides a list of nearby places that they can check in to. The app will then match places against data from each service and allow users to optionally select Read More