Now that people are just starting to get comfortable with the concept of the check-in for geo-location, it is starting to spread to other areas like product check-ins, TV show check-ins, and website check-ins. Just a couple weeks ago, Meebo introduced website check-ins as a new feature for its Meebo Bar. And before that, at our last Disrupt conference in San Francisco, two of the startups (Badgeville and OneTrueFan) launched entire companies around the concept of the website check-in.
So why would you ever want to check into a website? I ran into Meebo CEO Seth Sternberg today at SAI’s Ignition conference in New York City, who explains in the video above. The Meebo Bar is an IM and sharing extension that increasingly is appearing on many Websites. Meebo is now testing the concept of website check-ins, where you can check into any site you are on by clicking a button and sharing that on Facebook or Twitter. This is not the same as sharing a specific link, although it supports that as well. It is more just telling everyone you know that you like a certain site and it acts as an implicit endorsement. As a result, you will be able to find new sites through people, kind of like you can with StumbleUpon. A check-in in this respect is very similar to a Stumble.
People who check in the most become “VIPs,” with the idea that individual publishers could then reward their most loyal visitors with recognition or extra perks. You can sign up for the alpha version of the Meebo extension here (for Firefox and Chrome only) to check out the check-in feature.
