Google March 10 nodded to Foursquare by adding check-in offers to its friend-finding Latitude service. The offers are limited to 60 shops in downtown Austin, Texas, for SXSW.
Taking a page
from Foursquare's playbook, Google's Latitude application is offering
incentives such as free coffee and ice cream for users who check in to more
than 60 businesses in Austin, Texas, for the South-by-Southwest Interactive show.
Google Feb. 1
launched check-ins for its Google Latitude
friend-finding application to help users share places they pop into with friends
from their Android smartphones.
The company
also included game mechanics similar to those created by mobile check-in
startup Foursquare, with users gaining Regular, VIP or Guru at places,
depending on how often you've checked in there. These status levels will help
determine whether a user is eligible for an offer or not.
At SXSW (the South-by-Southwest
Interactive show), the music, movie and Internet festival where Foursquare rose
to prominence two years ago, users will be able to find check-in offers from
businesses' Place pages and Google Maps for Android (version 5.2) search
results.
Users will tap
to see their status and can unlock check-in offers for their status level from
a business' Place page. When a Latitude user unlocks a check-in offer, they can
tap redeem and show their phone to claim their deal or discount,
similar to the way users do on Foursquare or the Facebook Deals service.
Google created
this
Google
Maps list of Austin businesses participating in these check-in offers.
EWEEK will build a slideshow next week of some of the current offers, a sample
of which includes:
- a free coffee for Regulars at Frank
- a free sundae from the cafe for VIPs at Toy Joy
- buy a slice and get one free
during certain hours for VIPs at East Side Pies
- 10 percent off any upcoming event
book for Gurus at BookPeople
- 20 percent off select merchandise
for Gurus at Waterloo Records
While the
check-in offers are limited to Austin this week, Google is working on bringing
them to more people and more places all over the United States.
Check-ins and
check-in offers are also limited to Android phone users at this time, though
Google will add these perks to the Latitude application for the iPhone soon.
Google's move
highlights its aggressive measures to target the intersection of local search
and e-commerce in the wake of the company's failure to acquire Groupon for $6
billion.
While Google
is just launching deals with check-ins, Foursquare earlier this week
launched the third version of its platform,
adding "specials" to offer to swarms, groups of friends, regulars,
newbies, mayors or everyone. The check-in service has 7.5 million users.
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