Rummble, the location-based social ratings mobile startup, has released a new version of its iPhone app containing what is effectively its answer to Foursquare.
The feature is called “Local Heroes” and is billed as “the fun side of Rummbling” but it is quite obviously going to be Rumbble’s way of attacking the buzz surrounding the game of checking-in and becoming a “Mayor” of a location as propogated by the New York-based Foursquare. Local Heroes is a feature listed under “Empire” which suggests that there will be yet more gaming elements introduced.
Rummble has until now relied on its users to create content about places they visit and rate their friends’ ability to do so – what it calls the Rummble trust network. But clearly that’s not quite enough in the face of big players like Qype, dominant in Europe for local reviews, and Yelp in the U.S.
So Rummble is entering the social location gaming pushed by the likes of Foursquare and Gowalla.
Thus users on Rummble can now not only work out whose opinion they trust about a place (cafe, bar etc) but also look up the Local Hero, as in the expert, for the place they are in. Rummble’s view is that this is going to be a better badge of honour than someone who has just checked-in a lot and earned points for a place.
The move has also come as Rummble propogates it’s new open API. This will allow any developer to build any kind of game on top of Rummble’s service.
After gowalla serie B, everyone is moving the foursquare way to get attention, and even at openplayce we have our own badges and place captains. (http://www.crunchbase.com/company/openplayce). But I’m pretty sure gaming is like facebook poke at its time: it’s fun, and is clearly great to get traction at first, but it’s not the magic part of the service. And the battlefield will shift sooner or later from gaming to general user experience and integration with other social networks.
Martin,
I think you hit the nail on the head. Check-In seems to be the new buzzword these days. I think all of the mentioned platforms have their strengths and weaknesses and would venture to say that a winner can not be declared yet. Right now I check-In then what? There are still a couple of missing pieces and even when those pieces are found it still needs to be delivered in a way that users will engage and grow with it. Should be interesting to see how it all shakes out.
I like Rummble very much. Very easy to use and a lot of useful info especially if you want to go see the world
100% agree with you Martin!!!
I like Rummble. Very easy to use and a lot of useful info especially if you want to go see the world
its pretty clear that Rummble have the long tail in mind when it comes to content where foursquare doesn’t. Let the games begin.
nice to see Rumble adding features (to tri and take third place in this race
but itis a shame that they dont think their social recommendation can compete on it own legs. I also think rumble has too many stuff already for mobile app. needs simpler ux.
martyn is right. this is like facebook poke. checkin is fun whilst its new but you need more substence to be really useful.
db
From my perspective local apps must be useful AND engaging. The Tellmewhere iPhone app started by offering useful local reviews and personalized recommendations. Now we’re building the “engaging” part by offering easy communications between users. I think that all types of gaming will be attractive for a broad audience.
you’d think someone would put some more funding in foursquare since mobile is supposedly so hot right now.
MyLocator, I’m hoping you were being sarcastic.. didn’t they just get 1.5 million a couple of months ago? If they cant pull it off with that money they have bigger issues.
These social networking “check-in” games are fun… but seeing as it is EXTREMELY easy to spoof your GPS location on the iPhone, I wouldn’t take the “Mayor” or “Local Heroes” thing too seriously as a brick-and-morter store owner.
I agree, you need something more than poke someone. A radically different approach for hyperlocal content is Askaro.com, a kind of stackoverflow with geolocated questions. Btw, in Askaro they also have “local heroes” in each city.