Introduction
Last month, I decided to give the social media service Foursquare a trial run, using the Blackberry edition of their application. My first introduction to Foursquare was via people I followed on Twitter announcing that:
- They had checked-in at a certain location – a feature which I didn’t think required to be pushed out to the world. Services like Google Latitude provided a more elegant solution to the “Where are my friends?” question.
- They had become “mayor” of this location or that location – which made Foursquare seem like a game of one-upmanship.
Neither of these made me want to try Foursquare, in fact they just annoyed me. I intentionally avoided it. However, as a believer in social media, and of location-based services, I eventually caved in and decided to give it a try.
Launched last year at the SXSW Interactive event, the basic premise of Foursquare is that you “check-in” to “venues” you visit (stores, restaurants, etc.) announcing to your friends that you’re there. Check-ins at different locations, or regular check-ins, can earn you “badges”. Being the user with the most check-ins at a venue earns you the title of “Mayor” at that venue.
Value: Tips and To-Do’s
It turns out that this game of of becoming Mayor of a venue is a ploy to keep you coming back to Foursquare. By nature we’re competitive, and having an online recognition of “mayorship” can become addictive.
In my opinion the true value of Foursquare is in the “Tips” and “To-Do” features. When you check-in at a venue, you have the option of leaving “Tips” or “Things To Do” at that venue. For restaurants, this is a great way to recommend your favourite meal, at an amusement park to tell visitors that they absolutely have to try a certain ride, etc.
You can also tag the venues you’ve checked-in at with keywords indicating what can be found there. For example, at your local bar, you might tag it with: “martinis”, “karaoke”, and “dancing”. These keywords can then be searched to help users find venues that may be of interest to them.
Foursquare also links to venue revues provided through the Yelp service.
I believe that these features make Foursquare a very powerful tool in tourist destinations. You can, from your mobile phone, bypass the typical channels of tourist advertising, and get unfiltered opinions from people who have visited the area you’re in.
Adoption in Ottawa
The downside of this service in my city (Ottawa, Ontario) seems to be both slow adoption, and limited use of its features (checking in a venues in order to gain badges and Mayorships). I found that very few venues had any additional information such as tips or tags provided.
Conclusion
The concept behind Foursquare is a strong one. I think we will see many services take the concept of location-based services, and make better products with them. I’m sure Foursquare is very useful in some larger cities, but unfortunately has just not caught on fast enough to be of much use in Ottawa at this point in time.
For this reason, I’ve stopped using the service. Interestingly enough, this was my reaction to Twitter when I first tried it in 2008. Now, with better local adoption, it is now part of my daily social media intake. Maybe next year, Foursquare will be the same.
If you’ve never used Foursquare, take a look at my profile to see what check-ins, mayorships, tips and to-do’s look like.