A "check-in" is where you use an iPhone app like facebook's Places or Foursquare to let people know you are at a certain place. It's like telling the world, "Look where I am". 

Foursquare rewards you with an honorary title of Mayor if you have checked in the most at a given spot. It also lets you give tips, which is essentially a review. Recently I have been liking facebook more. It might have less options than foursquare but it's built into facebook and you can easily tag your friends with you. That way when you "check-in" it lands on other peoples walls as well. 

What does this mean for the business owner? It means you need to get on the ball and start controlling what is going on at your virtual business. You should want to know what people are saying about you. That's IF they are even talking about you at all and NOT being talked is not where we want to be. 

What does this mean for a portrait studio? I have not heard of anyone doing this big yet. Offering something for anyone who checks-in at your studio seems pretty straight forward to me. I would like to hear some good suggestions for this. I am still undecided about what to do at our studio. For now I am content with monitoring what is said about us. 

Don't fear technology. It's probably not going away any times soon. 

Tech reporter Jeff

side note: I typed this on my iPad. It's my first attempt at writing at length on the iPad. I am undecided about it. I think the keyboard will just take some getting used to. Maybe an external bluetooth keyboard is necessary.