Years have changed; surely it should be a reform of existing services to be better. Location-based service, Yotomo, aligned with the New Year released the latest version 2.0 for BlackBerry and Android platforms. Yotomo uses Foursquare’s location data as the basis to bolster its own service. They stated that in addition to improving their design, there would be also a number of new features introduced.
The focus on version 2.0 update is a game called the “Title”. This game takes after the mayorship model that was introduced by Foursquare. The difference is, there are a variety of titles up for grabs for a venue, depending on the categories. unlike Foursquare, there isn’t just one title to win but there are three levels. For example, in the Restaurant venue category, Yotomo users will compete for Yotomo Chef, Cook and Waiter title. Another example is the Office category in which the titles to grab are CEO, Manager, and Intern. For each venue in each category, the highest title can only be had by one user – like a Major in Foursquare.
Yotomo also introduced a tool for letting the merchants to confirm certain user whether they are really at the venue. For example: A restaurant merchant is having a promo based on check-ins. The admin can then use this tool to confirm whether checked-in customers are really present in order to claim the prize promo.
To be honest I still feel have mixed feeling about this innovation. It’s not about the execution problem but whether the enthusiasm of the user location-based services to acquire badges or a mayorship (and such) is still the same like when Foursquare first present. Throughout my observations, I found that only small percentage of users that actually still use Foursquare for that reason. Location-based services users seem now to be mature enough and they now use it to inform where the current location is.
Will location-based local services survive? I think that 2012 is crucial year for them and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some ceasing operations because they aren’t able to attract more users and participating merchants.
Yotomo for BlackBerry can be downloaded on http://www.yotomo.com/ download/blackberry, while the Android app can be downloaded from the Android Market. Mobile web version can be accessed at http://www.yotomo.com/m.
