This article was published on July 6, 2010

Mabzy takes a Foursquare approach to Internet browsing.


Mabzy takes a Foursquare approach to Internet browsing.

Is it time for another way of thinking about social check-ins?  Mabzy would like to believe so.

If you’ve ever used a service such as Foursquare or Gowalla, then you already know how to use Mabzy.  You’re browsing the Internet, you do a check-in from a page and that check-in is sent to your friends.  Of course, you can integrate Mabzy with your Twitter feed as well, turning Mabzy into an easier way to send out “now reading” status updates.

As you check in, you earn points.  Word from the site is that you’ll eventually be able to spend those points on real-world prizes, but we don’t have any sort of detail on that just yet.  Likewise, there’s no word on how or if Mabzy is monetized at all.  One would think that, eventually, the service could offer promotional advertising space to sites.  Having that “Check-In of the Day” site, and perhaps offering some added points for checking in to it would be a great way to bring in funding.

The interesting part about Mabzy is that as you check in, you’re adding stats to each individual page on the Internet.  Take a look at the screenshot, and you’ll see what I mean:

The <3 of EU tech

The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!

Not only is this a great way for Mabzy to show how much traffic it can drive to a site, it’s also a rather unique way for site owners to keep track of who is visiting and why.  Since a top domain search for “The Next Web” showed check-in activity at 2 different pages on our site, it seems that Mabzy is cataloging not only the top level but adding any subdomain pages to it as well.

For now, check-ins can be done directly from the site, via a bookmarklet or even through services such as Tweetmeme.  It really is, as founder Zachary Collins states, rather addicting.

Get the TNW newsletter

Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.

Also tagged with