So I’ve seen an increasing amount of my Social Media friends tweeting that they have been crowned Foursquare “mayor” of this place or another. As well as feeling a tad spammed, my initial reaction was “well, that’s a bit pointless and geeky”.
On closer inspection, Foursquare is a location-based game which reveals your whereabouts to your Foursquare friends and Facebook/Twitter followers (if you choose to). You “check-in” to a location and can then review or give tips on the location, viewable by other Foursquare users. I suppose it is a modern guest book with bells and whistles.
And useful. Avoid a duff meal in a restaurant you have never been into as people suggest the best thing on the menu. That obscure old-man ale you like to drink and can’t find anywhere? Well it’s served in that bar over there. And if you are wondering whether that art gallery show is any cop before you hand over you hard earned cash then it’s good for that too. Been stood up by someone? No problem. Just tune in to see which of your friends are nearby and join them to avoid Billy-no-mates syndrome.
I also like that you are encouraged to be adventurous, exploring your city or checking into multiple locations in one day, earning you further status badges.
So other that being a rather handy user-generated mini-review forum with bragging rights, what’s the point? Well, as a user, you earn points for each location you check into. Get the most points for a particular location and you become the mayor of that location. A mayor will often be rewarded with vouchers or discount incentives. Kind of like a loyalty reward scheme, and my Boots Advantage card will testify that schemes like this keep customers loyal. Big time.
Business owners with their fingers on the pulse are actively promoting Foursquare to get people talking about their establishment and offering rewards. As users become addicted and want to maintain their mayor status of a certain location, say a coffee shop, their active promotion of a certain location can only be good for business.
This is also a marketers dream; incredibly useful for researching consumer patterns and targeted advertising and messages. Analytics are now available to businesses that get involved, and the future holds a whole host of messaging based on real-time events.
The cynics will say that this is the playground for stalkers, burglars and adulterers but you can choose who to disclose your location to – just your Foursquare friends or the whole of Twitter. So you have some sort of control on who knows your whereabouts if you are worried about someone casing your property!
Foursquare is not exactly a revolutionary concept. There have previously been a few other location-based social networking apps that have been slow on user uptake (or fallen flat) but it is the additional incentives and status features which Foursquare offers that is the addictive cocktail, earning them the most interest and a strong foundation to build upon. As more and more cities are added to the service then it can only grow bigger and better. As I write this, 15 year old Parker Liautaud has just been the first to check in at the North Pole, earning the coveted Last Degree badge. Now that is seriously cool in more ways that one.