The check-in has become a symbol of our mobile turnover, contextualizing our social interactions with the layer of location.  Companies like Foursquare have capitalized on the check-in, and now Forecast 2.0 hopes to take the check-in to the next level with the added context of time.  Future check-ins allow users to plan for a social event, instead of merely archiving what’s already or currently happening.  As Forecast CEO Rene Pinnel says, time can make all sorts of magic happen.

With the launch of Forecast 2.0, rolling out in private beta, Pinnel and his team have brought together the many lessons learned through Forecast’s initial beta phase, as well as their experiences with Hurricane Party, a social app launched successfully at SXSW in Austin last year.  One stand out feature is the deep Facebook integration for Forecast 2.0, extending future check-ins beyond Foursquare.

“One thing we had to really work on was grouping,” Pinnel explains, “so we created a ‘me too’ button that will group you together around a forecast.  It makes it very clear who’s in a group.  And we knew it’d be important to invite non-users, so we built a website with a unique URL for forecasts.  When you invite someone via email or SMS, there’s a link in that message that opens on their PC or mobile web browser.  It makes it much easier than having non-users download the app.”

These updates are significant for Forecast’s next steps as a cross-platform application, creating an experience that refuses to be limited to an icon in the App Store.  With an appeal for a more general audience, Forecast is setting the stage for further integration with other apps and services down the line.  Adding to its collaborative capabilities, Forecast sees potential in the analytics of intent, or future-tense analytics, if you will.  This is an area of business intelligence that’s becoming increasingly attractive to brand marketing, finding new ways to leverage social interactions.

We’ll be hearing more from Forecast, as their update comes just in time for this year’s SXSW event.  Pinnel expects even more success than Hurricane Party, as Forecast works well for big events and small gatherings alike.  “I think that Forecast will be flexible for all types of events that make this special,” Pinnel says, hinting once again at the magic he sees in our collective social data.