My Take on Foursquare

10/20/10 11:59 PM

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I’ve been foursquaring for about a year now, as it’s only really been around that long in Edmonton. (Couldn’t find a live link to the Journal article, as they archive old posts-fail-but here’s a Metro article from earlier this year with an @alohanico interview).

Seriously, man, what in the heck is Foursquare?

Foursquare is a relatively new form of social media that allows you to record locations that you’ve visited and gives you the option to share your location with others. I’d say it’s easier than facebook to use, and as easy or slightly more involved than twitter in some regards to use. The long-and-short of it is, when you visit a store, restaurant, building, etc, you open up the foursquare application on your phone, “you check-in” as a way of leaving your digital footprint there (dogs pee on fire hydrants…). It uses GPS technology to locate you and suggests the closest establishments. If it’s in the list, yay-you click it, check in, and move on with your day. If you so choose, you can tell everyone on twitter and or facebook know you’re there, too, with the click of a button. This has been a cause of grief for some people. Be mindful how often you post anything on twitter, let alone the banal check-in at a transit stop, or arriving at work, etc. Do check-in on 4sq, but only push it out to other networks if there is a reason to, like “today is free bacon day at the office, come on down!” THAT, my friends, is a reason to post it everywhere. Another thing to note is that you can set it to tweet on your behalf for certain achievements like becoming mayor of a place or earning a badge. Once you earn something, it tweets it out for you automatically. Always check your settings, and adjust them according to how you want it to operate. That goes for any app or program.

How to Find Friends on Foursquare

Like most apps, they want to know all of your connections, and facilitate that process right off the hop. Do it, you’ll be surprised who is already signed up from your other social networks.

Rewards & Extras

This is sort of the candy of 4sq. Becoming mayor is the main one. Whoever has visited a location the most in the past 60 days, at least twice, becomes the mayor. You can lose it just as fast as you won it, which means if you are the competitive type, you may be frequenting certain establishments more than you otherwise would (seeing business potential here, folks?). Being mayor is kind of cool, but it’s even cooler when the establishment rewards you, like LUX Steakhouse + Bar did.

Badges are kind of cool, too. Some just seem like an inside joke that the developpers had, but most are pretty cool. I’ve got some.

The standings are interesting, but not very meaningful (unless your’e the insane guy at the top, who has absolutely no life, I’m sure.

You can even look on the map to see which compromising venues your friends are frequenting. Like so:

You can leave tips about a venue, like “try the chicken lemongrass sandwich”, or “don’t try the mystery meat”. I only wish that when someone accepted your tip, it told you, or rewarded you. That would make it more interactive, and motivate you to leave more tips.

Safety and Privacy

A few things to note: you have got to be digitally streetwise. If one of my daughters was using 4sq, I would advise her to not check-in to a location if she is by herself, unless perhaps she checks in as she is checking out. Meaning, benefit from the points and races for mayor from checking in, but not doing it and then making yourself a sitting duck for potential predators/creepers/harassers. It sounds a little crazy, but I know someone who recently had someone from another country phone her just minutes after she checked in to an Edmonton restaurant. Imagine the sever telling you the phone is for you and being told that you have been chosen as their new stalking material.
If, however, it’s a tweetup, or there are others at the venue who you trust, there isn’t much reason to not check in.

I say don’t check in to your house, but if you do, you don’t likely want to post the actual address. It’s pretty obvious why. Another way to address privacy and safety is by checking in off-grid. Don’t want your psychotic ex to know where you are? Running from the police, but still want to appear on the  Foursquare help has some insight into this. To check-in off-the-grid, simply click “no” next to “share with friends (keep in mind that I use the iPhone, and I don’t know what it looks like on other platforms, although I don’t imagine it’s too different). Supposedly, you still collect points, and your check-ins count toward mayorships, but I don’t know how that could be, when you’re basically saying “don’t tell anyone I’m here, but I still want to be mayor”. Could someone test this for me and let me know? Thanks.

Travelling

You can be connected to 4sq friends all over the world, but unless you’re both in the same city doing check-ins, it won’t matter. Like when I was at the Royal LePage National Sales Conference in Montreal, My Calgary, Vancouver, Victoria, and Regina friends and I were checking in, and I would receive push notifications on where everyone was. It was great, because it helped decide where I should go dance each night. 😉 Then, when you return home and start checking in to your own city, you no longer receive notifications of their check-ins.

Limitations

It doesn’t really have a clean way to connect people from within the app, except if you’re at a venue with several others there as well. It will show all in attendance, and you can add them as a friend. Depending on what info people include, you can sometimes send them a txt, email, tweet, or call them. Not a big deal, and I really don’t know how they could improve it, but it’s always kind of bugged me because it’s kind of 1-way. Maybe it would be cool to be able to write on someone’s profile or something like facebook. Maybe events.

Sometimes the GPS is wonky (although that could be due to dropping my phone too much), so it won’t give you credit for a check-in because it thinks you’re on the other side of town.

Potential

I’d really like to see more local shops take advantage of this platform as a virtually free way to generate buzz and loyalty for their businesses. Take Credo Coffee for example.

100 different people have checked in to this place a total of 555 times. Average of 5 times a head. Why aren’t these people being rewarded with something fun, small, whatever, to give them that extra feeling of satisfaction and loyalty after spending $5 on a cup of something that is probably only worth 38 cents? See where it says “Do you manage this venue? Claim here”? That takes you to a wonderful land of opportunity. You can choose to reward people each time the y check in, or every X times they check in, or on the 5th, 10th, etc. You can create mayor badges, specials, and even request a 4sq decal to stick on your door. For free. I don’t see the downside here.

See what my friend Brian Copeland wrote about 4sq on his blog.