The geosocial networking cesspool is indeed growing rapidly in usage these past few months as helmed by the likes of Gowalla, Foursquare and Brightkite. These services mash together location-based social networking and the resulting app is a fun, scavenger hunt purveyor cum marketing media vehicle.
We’ve all seen their updates populating the Twittersphere and Facebook space from friends with the blatant yet unwitting dare to invite stalkers. Now let’s put that same premise in the bar scene with BarCards and the social game become even more interesting.
Released for the iPhone, BarCards provides an ice breaker for the all-too awkward social scene by laying out a bunch of randomized cards where you have to either answer trivia questions or perform activities that require interacting with anyone in the bar outside your group. It’ll give you a reason to justify a night out (or several night outs) and a great excuse to be able to talk to the ladies.
It allows up to eight people to play and each player gets three cards to deal with.
The questions and activities are pretty simple. They range from challenging ones like having to find anyone who can name Oscar winning actors to silly (albeit hilarious) actions like yelling out “Marco!” with someone else in the crowd responding with a “Polo!” or getting a woman to sing “Baby Got Back.”
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At the bottom of the cards are three buttons Success, Standings and Fail to mark whether the card’s specified task has been successfully accomplished or not. The loser would then have to buy the winner a drink.
Given its nature, the app’s iTunes Preview page stresses that only 17-year olds or older are allowed to download this app. We, however, believe it should be 21 which is, you know, the age at which kids are actually allowed admission into a bar.
BarCards, developed by Piñojo Productions, is available for the iPhone OS 3.0 or higher, and would, of course also run on the iPod touch and the iPad. You can download it from the App Store for free as a lite version with ads or you can opt for the ad-free version for 99 cents with additional cards.
Tags: Apple, BarCards, iPhone OS, Mobile Apps
