Kickball, a third-party Foursquare iPhone app/client now available in the App Store, is trying to be a slicker and more complete social location app than we’ve seen so far.
Currently built with using the Foursquare API and GeoAPI (curiously not using SimpleGeo as GeoAPI was acquired by Twitter), Kickball has plans future plans to integrate Gowalla and Brightkite, and according to their press release will also have, “Quick Check-in, enhanced Twitter integration with photos, new badges, and ‘King of the Hood”‘ (whatever that is…we’re guessing it’s a pan-mayorship kind of thing).
The app as it stands today has a few improvements over Foursquare’s current app, although we should point out that Kickball crashed a number of times while we were using it today. The first improvement is a the ability to add photos to a venue, which is something that many users have been looking for out of Foursquare.
The second improvement is a map view of where your friends currently are. Again, this has been a long sought after feature in the Foursquare iPhone app, and one that we’ve seen incorporated into other (mostly web-based) mashups of Foursquare data.
As far as design goes, although we believe the main purpose of the app is to make it look better than Foursquare’s app, there is really two places where we feel it significantly exceeds Foursquare’s latest build (quite likely, Kickball was developed mostly before Foursquare released their more polished looking app at SXSW). Where Kickball looks better is the check-in/venue page and on user/friend profile pages. Both have a nice sleek blood red look, and if you are a mayor of a place, it shows you a clever picture of a coaster on a bar that reads, “Serve Your People Well”. Badges on the profile page are nicely aligned and when you click over the design choice of the description is nicer than what Foursquare presently has.
Right now, Kickball is a free app, although the company behind the app, Gorlochs (out of Portland, OR) hints that this may not last long. As usual, we’re going to disagree about making this a paid app, especially as Foursquare’s own app is free. Overall, however, it is nice too see some third-party development of check-in clients – hopefully this will be the start of a trend, just as there are now numerous quality Twitter clients in the App Store. Finally, no word on whether or when Kickball will be available for other mobile platforms.
with check.in and this… just proves that location is here to stay… This is just the beginning though of so many apps… Can't wait till somebody starts working with somebody else and makes all this checking BS easier/simpler
Location is clearly the place to be right now… It's about leverage and brand position though – even more in this market. FourSquare's getting a lot of corporate partnership and sign-up; will Kickball (daft name), or other newcomers manage the same from ground zero. Gowalla's got the momentum, but I see that ending up getting eaten up by Google as the rest of the second-placers tend to do – (my thoughts on this expanded here: http://article_dan.posterous.com/foursquare-ram… )
The one benefit a new location service has over, say a new 140 Character comms network, is the race to Mayorship/King of the Hood/Whatever feels more live in a new app. The locations are fresh, territory claimed is less secure and unassailable than in FourSquare, where if you've just joined – good luck being Mayor of the Austin Starbucks, baby. But, without the network of friends around, you're ultimately tagging a scene of dereliction – the novelty and utility soon wares thin.
Agreed Chuck, third-party development certainly solidifies any emerging tech, and we're just starting to see it come about now. That said, I still kind of doubt that Foursquare, Gowalla or Brightkite are the platform, but if Twitter and Facebook don't make significant strides soon to improve their own platforms regarding location, the Foursquare API might just win out (Gowalla is one-way right now and Brightkite's has been around for awhile and hasn't really caught on too much).
Interesting angles. However, I think this might be looking too deeply at what Kickball is after. I see Kickball as simply trying to be a Tweetie for Foursquare/location services. It's a client, and I agree, if they try to make their own social network on top of that, well, good luck. Tweetie and other Twitter clients do quite well (of course there is no official Twitter client, so maybe this is more like going up against Facebook's iPhone app…). A very slick and innovative client in this space could really rack up some cash if it is much better than what Foursquare / Gowalla already offer in their free apps. Right now, if I was Kickball, I'd keep this app free, but with some improvements, I suspect users will be ok with paying $0.99 or maybe even $1.99.
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