MyTown 3.1 launches with focus on check-in fidelity
Are you where you say you are?
Introducing a series of measures designed to combat the trend for 'fake check-ins', the launch of MyTown 3.1 has brought Booyah's Location-Based Service (LBS) app in line with the competition.
The latest version of MyTown enacts a series of new rules that should make it harder to cheat the system.
As such, users are now restricted to 25 check-ins a day, and an accuracy indicator that marks off all check-ins made based on how close the user was to the real location when they checked in has also been implemented.
Most of the major LBS apps have already altered their respective set-ups in an attempt to clamp down on people checking into locations they've actually not visited.
Foursquare now evaluates your phone's location every time you check-in, for instance, with Gowalla simply greying out venues it deems out of your reach.
Game for gameplayAway from policing, there are also new general gameplay features, including the ability to customise your property with collectables – both free and premium – and a revised menu set-up that highlights your friend's movements and favourites more clearly.
But it's tackling those bending the game's rules to pick up points that appears to be Booyah's main priority, with the new check-in limit perhaps causing the most concern.
Nonetheless, TechCrunch reports this implementation of this rule will be eased somewhat in the next update, with 25 check-ins allowed, but points not added to each player's total when they pass this point.
Booyah's stance on fake check-ins is increasingly important, with MyTown still the genre's market leader in terms of pure numbers.
Though its latest total userbase is unknown, daily check-ins have now hit 3.5 to 4 million, with the app having previously added new users at a rate of 500,000 every month earlier in the year.
[source: TechCrunch]
