One of the great things about being at SXSW 2011 is running into people and discovering an amazing new service or app. I think the LocalMind iPhone app qualifies, as the service can best be described as a mix of Quora and Foursquare.
The LocalMind iPhone app just launched a few days ago and it uses the APIs of multiple check-in services to determine where people are in order to pose questions. What type of questions? Well, if you’re at SXSW and see that people have checked in at a certain party you can ask pertinent questions like, “Is there a long line?” or “Is there free beer there?”
The LocalMind iPhone app also has a web component and that’s important because if you don’t have the iPhone app, you can still be notified of questions via SMS. It smartly assumes that if you’ve checked in at a location, you would have useful knowledge of that place.
When you’re in the LocalMind iPhone app, you can pull up a map view of nearby check-ins in order to pose questions and there’s also a list view if you prefer to get your information that way. Answering questions gives you props within the service but there are no tangible rewards yet. Additionally, the company said that we can look forward to apps on various platforms in the not-too-distant future.
I’m sincerely digging the LocalMind iPhone app because I think it has a load of potential. Layering a Q&A service on top of location could be incredibly powerful and it’s a brilliant idea. Of course, it won’t really become useful it has a large base of users who are actively participating. That’s a hurdle that every app maker has to overcome.
This is just one of the cool apps we’ve seen at the SXSW 2011, so you should check out our live coverage of what’s hot and popping in the mobile space.