Last week Foursquare changed how they tag locations and this means it is available everywhere in Canada. According to their website:
You can use foursquare anywhere in the world! Check-in at the Statue of Liberty in NYC, the Golden Gate bridge in SF, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpu or the Arch de Triumph in Paris! Back in the day, we were limited to select cities, but now you can check-in anywhere you please!
Back in November, Pete Cashmore proposed that “the Twitter of 2010 is Foursquare”. A location-based real-time social network, this mobile service includes a Foursquare API for third party developers as well as Foursquare for Business, which allows local businesses to offer deals via the service. Users “check-in” when they arrive and can vie for top number of check-ins for specific locations to become “mayor” of that location.
There are similar sites: Gowalla is more a geo-game site, Brightkite, Loopt and Google Latitude. Gowalla is sligthly different, allowing a sort of virtual geo-caching game between users, and would likely stand apart from this group. Foursquare does dominate however and combined with the API and business solution, will likely not be threatened by the mild competition.
For Business This Means…
Location-based social networking should be very attractive to brands and businesses – this adds social value to the brick and mortar locations that are visited each day by mobile users. The value of being represented here is much more tangible and easier to understand than with regards to many other aspects of the social web, in addition participating is much easier to comprehend. The confusion that has arisen in the participation of many retailers using Twitter for example should not be as pronounced in this case. Foursquare has a viable service to offer businesses – you arrive at a location and check-in. Based on this check-in, you can connect with every arrival by offering them deals, making friends with people who check-in, helping them after their check-in.
Here are some examples of how easily this is applied:
- Check-in at a pizza place 5 times, on 6th check-in get a free pizza
- The natural competition to be mayor for a hot new club
- A promotional “rally” where individuals must check-in at all locations, could be organized by all businesses involved to promote themselves > complete rally and get gift card to be used at those locations (ie. London Ontario Richmond Row)
For Users This Means… Much More
Okay, so this is great for businesses. But why is Foursquare important to users? Quite simple. In any discussion of social networking online you will hear talk of the social graph – for example the social connections and webs that are interwoven on Facebook. Imagine if you could take this social graph and embed into onto a moving, real-time map of the world. This is Foursquare. See the social graph move around their geographic area, and connect with people AND locations.
Popularity: 18% [?]
