TechCrunch blogger M.G. Siegler was at SXSW and reports on something I experienced too at SXSW. “Check-in fatigue” happens when you are trying to use location-based software to let your friends know where you are in real-space. So in theory, you arrive somewhere, and quickly “check-in” via your smartphone. You can see if any of your friends are nearby. You can leave a review or message about the location. Some services have other frills, like maps, badges, and virtual gifts. At SXSW, I used check-in tools to find where @kdc was sitting, so we could talk, and also to choose bars and restaurants. BUT, if you try and check-in to each place you visit even on one service, it gets tiresome, and since there are a host of these services, including Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, Whrrl, Brightkite, Burbn, MyTown, CauseWorld, Hot Potato, Plancast, and (at certain places) Foodspotting, you end up spending your waking hours and expending your best attention stream, in geo-locating.

The SXSW parties I attended were outdoors, on star-lit nights, with loads of interesting people, lots of libations, but everyone was spending face time reading by the glow of their handhelds, giving only cursory attention to the live humans all around them. You can read what the TechCruncher says here:

this would take a solid 10 minutes or more to check-in to all of them. And it took even longer when I’d have to pause to explain to my friends what the hell I was doing on my phone all that time.

via Check-In Fatigue. Or, Why I’m Rooting For An All-Out Location War..

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