Friday, October 15, 2010

Review: SCVNGR

SCVNGR is my one of my least favorite geolocation applications. Foursquare is the easiest to use, because there are a lot of graphics and it is by far the most popular of the applications. This is nice because not only can you find a lot of your friends on FourSquare, but there are a lot of places that you can check in to that have already been created. This is not the case with SCVNGR. I cannot find a single person who has even heard of this application, let alone who uses it. Therefore, all of my checking in that I have done has been for my own benefit because I have zero friends to report to on this application. The only people I can see on this application are people who geotag their posts on Facebook, but only if you connect with Facebook friends and allow the application to access your Facebook page.

This application is like a game and the purpose is to receive a lot of points and complete treks and challenges. To earn points, you need to check in. You have the option of checking in for one point, a social check-in for two times the points you check in with. For a social check in you must bump phones with another iPhone to check-in with a friend. If you "say something" about the location or whatever you want, you can receive two points. Finally, you can snap a picture of the location you are at for two points. If you are knowledgeable about the location, you can create a challenge.

You can go on "treks," which I was initially very excited about. When I clicked on the trek button, there was only trek available and it said Mizzou. I clicked on it and it only had one location - Faurot Field. I was very disappointed. The only positive I found was that at three locations in Columbia you can redeem rewards if you check in at that location. The only locations available were GameStop and Journeys. I was never close enough to these locations to check in and see the possible reward, but with so few people on this application I wonder how big of a reward it could possibly be.

I like the social check in feature, but other than that, this application is a huge disappointment. There are very few people on this application, and thus very little activity on each of the locations you can check in at. Maybe if the application had more activity and more interesting graphics I would give it another go.

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