So, I’ve decided to do a little blogging series called “The Ideal Social Network.” Through out the series, I’ll give my opinion on what the ideal social network would be like, and why Facebook and Twitter fail to meet these standards.

Because April 16 was FourSquare day (4^2 (four squared) equals 16), I will be talking about check-ins. FourSquare is a mobile application that allows you to update your Twitter and Facebook accounts with your current location. There are other services that allow you to do similar things, like Facebook Places.

The Idea Behind Check-Ins 

Check-ins let your friends and followers know where you are in real-time. The idea behind this, is so that if a friend is near by, they can come meet you there in real life.

Here’s a video from when Facebook first released Places. It explains the original idea for creating such a feature:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfX_ZQag1BM]

Where and Where Not To Check-In

People shouldn’t check-in to every place they go to.  I don’t care if you are at the grocery store picking up something to eat for supper. I don’t need to know that about your life. (I have to admit I have checked in to various places like this in the past, and will refrain from doing so in the future).

Checking-in means you want to let your friends know where you are, so that they can come and join you, if they want. It should be done if you are at  a coffee shop, a pub, or a community sports events, and similar events where you can meet up with your friends and have a good time together.

Some mobile applications, like Facebook Deals, allow businesses to offer the person checking-in a discount of some sort for sharing their location with their friends. It’s a good marketing idea, but sometimes it can just be “spammy”. If I were to get a deal, I would like to share that [I got a deal] with my friends to. So, if I’m using Facebook Deals, and I check-in and got a 20% discount, it should say in my friends’ news feeds: “(Matt) just got 20% off at [business name]” or something similar, not just “(Matt) is at [business name].”

The one pet peeve I have about check-ins is when people check-in to their own home. THIS IS NOT WHAT CHECK-INS WERE DESIGNED FOR. They were designed for businesses. This is a flaw in Facebook and FourSquare’s systems. Although allowing anyone to add a business to the database, there should be more of a verification process to verify the place being added is actually a business.

Check-ins on The Ideal Social Network

So, to recap, checking in on the ideal social network should only be able to be done from a social place, like a coffee shop. It wouldn’t allow you to check-in to a place that isn’t a business, like your home. Verification for new business would be a bit more strict than today’s check-in applications.

Stay tuned for more blog posts like these!

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