Going loco over Locle!

With all the buzz going on around Foursquare , I couldn’t wait for it to reach Dublin so I could try it out. When it did, I was a little disappointed. I haven’t found it to be overly ‘social’ as an application. It’s great to see what bars, restaurants etc.. people are in and read their shouts but I haven’t found much use for communicating with people within it, or making new connections. I may be a bit late to the game, but I’ve recently been trying out Locle and so far, I think it’s a far better application than Foursquare. I got in touch with Pieter Oonk co-founder of Locle (with Ronan Higgins) to grill him about the location based service.

The lowdown

Locle was founded in 2008 and it launched on eircom.net in the same year. Locle apps are available on the iPhone, Android and Palm Pre. It works by finding your location and checking you in on a map. You can also find your friends from Facebook or Netlog. Locle has an exclusive agreement with Netlog, which is the largest indigenous social network in Europe, with around 50 million registered users.Locle is available on there as an embedded app, similar to how it runs on Facebook.

Locle currently has around 25,000 unique mobile users and they’re growing fast across middle Europe, with high uptake also in India, China and Indonesia.

Pieter explained that their main focus is on becoming the preferred location based app for closed social networks such as Netlog, Xing (German), LinkedIn (US) and Skyrock (France). If they can make this work, I think it will be a huge success. Location based apps still haven’t really hit the mainstream, with Foursquare still being among the early adopter phase. if Locle can integrate successfully with existing social networks and target users in this way, it could help it hit larger audiences with widespread usage.

Pieter and Ronan had considered functionality similar to Foursquare, but decided against rewards and points. Pieter said “The gaming aspect has appeal, we also considered awarding users for adding locations and checking in to places but thought, and still think, the real value is not in the places people congregate but in the serendipitous encounters that happen when people are out and about.” In that sense, they only see Foursquare as a competitor that’s focused on a different experience.

This is one of the things I like most about Locle. From a usability perspective, it is incredibly simple which I think is important.The screenshot below shows your location in green, with friends located near you :

To be honest, with a location based service, I want the focus to be on connecting with people around me, rather than building up points or becoming a mayor. I’m a bit confused as to why you need a points system anyway, what do we really gain from this?

In Locle, there is also a more native way of finding connections. Using the app on my iphone, I simply login to automatically update my location (much easier than Foursquare), then I can browse through other users that are in the vicinity. You can view ‘Locles’ (your friends) and ‘Yokles’ : people that are near you but that you’re not connected to. This obviously brings up the issue of security, as with any location based service and is something you should be aware of when you’re signing up.

For those of you that haven’t already, I suggest you give Locle a try. No mayors, no points, no badges, but that’s kind of the beauty of it. The easiest way to download it is to go to Get Locle – I’m LaurenFisher on there, add me if you want