Steve Campbell

Rate ‘Things’ with Oink [iPhone]

Those who know me know that I think pretty highly of geolocation apps. Anything that utilizes the GPS technology in my phone to make my life easier is a welcome addition for me, especially since I moved to New York City last year.

When you think geolocation, the first app that comes to mind is Foursquare. Foursquare is great for keeping track of places you’ve been, seeing where your friends are around town, and finding interesting places you’ll love. But do you know what Foursquare doesn’t let you do? It doesn’t give you the specifics on the things that make those places so great. Is it a certain dish? A drink? The music?

The tips that people leave at various locations are helpful in this instance, but not always. Well, now there’s a new app that you can use alongside applications like Foursquare to find out where your favorite “things” are.

What is Oink?

Oink is an iPhone app that lets you rate and rank the things around you. Basically, instead of just rating places, you actually rate the items inside, which gives you and your friends much more context around what makes a place worth visiting. When you think about it, there are tons of sites and apps out there built around the idea of rating places, restaurants, bars, etc. Being able to see why places receive those types of ratings, however, can be a lot more helpful.

For a little background, Oink is the first mobile app to drop from Milk, an app-building company started by Kevin Rose (Founder of Digg, tech investor). Because of this, Oink has already become really popular, even though it was only recently released.

If you’d like to see Oink in action, check out this short video introduction from Kevin Rose.

How does Oink work?

Once you download and install Oink on your phone, you can connect with your Facebook account, Twitter, or email address to begin using the app. Oink will auto-sync your friends/contacts so you can see the types of things they like within the app.

Then, you can begin rating items from the places you visit. Rating something is as simple as clicking a button. Whether it’s sushi, a specific brand of beer, or the overall atmosphere that keeps you going back to a place, you can use Oink to document that for yourself and your friends.

After you use the app for a bit, you will start to build “Cred” around certain topics/tags that you are experienced in. Tags can be anything from breakfast to margaritas, and the more items you rate around a topic the more credibility you gain. This helps users recognize just how experienced an “Oinker” you are.

You can also share your Oink activity on Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare if you like, letting your friends and followers know what’s good (or bad) at spots around town.

Conclusion

In short, I think Oink is pretty awesome. Not only does it help me give context around the places and things I care about, but I can use it to find the perfect things I’m looking for, whether it be the best slice of pizza in my neighborhood, or best roller coaster when I visit Six Flags. It goes hand-in-hand with some of the other geolocation apps out there and it’s certainly made its way to the first page of apps on my iPhone.

What do you think about Oink?