I tinker with a lot of stuff – not as much as I probably should – but I do have a tendency to wait until something seems like it’s getting a bit of traction before giving it due time. (Just so you know, Second Life didn’t pass the test – don’t hate me).
But, to be honest, I’ve definitely been a mobile skeptic until the past year or two. In 1999, when I was at K*Grind (Sydney dot-com phenom backed by Macquarie Bank), I remember hearing prophesies of stuff like Foursquare. In fact, I still remember the exact example someone smarter than me stated: “Imagine being on Pitt St in front of McDonald’s and you get a message saying your friend is inside and McDonald’s then sends you a special offer to take up in-store.”
Every year since then, I’ve been waiting for my mobile McDonald’s offer… and a friend to share it with.
Possibly, Foursquare – and there are several other tools like this out there – is the platform off which this stuff will become mainstream reality. If not, whatever happens next will be. That’s why I’ve decided that it’s worth my time to play with it. As social networks go mobile along with years of our personal data, the real-world possibilities are very exciting.
BTW, here’s a snapshot of website traffic to Foursquare.com via Google Ad Planner (doesn’t include iTunes information access or app usage stats):
So, what is Foursquare?
A mobile social network that allows people to share with each other where they are at a particular time and what to do there. That’s the guts of it. The bonus bits include being told (via push messages) when your network checks in somewhere and the ability to compete to become a mayor of a place (by being there more often than anyone else).
That mayor thing, I admit, turned me off a little. Mid-year, Foursquare was going nuts in the States and everyone kept Tweeting about becoming mayor of stuff. I didn’t appreciate it. But, today I became Mayor of the Sydney Convention Centre and it feels good.
Some Foursquare screenshots:
What I like about Foursquare
Helps me appreciate where I live even more
I live in the inner city and take the family on plenty of long walks around town. I documented a bunch of what I got up to on the weekend then looked at it today and realised how much stuff there is to do – even though sometimes I beat Sydney up.
Faster than Lonely Planet – and doesn’t try to sell me books (yet)
Every time I’ve traveled overseas in recent years I’ve tried to jump on Lonely Planet but have found the experience either slow, underwhelming (felt like, for a while, the content was really light in order to flog books) or a bit confusing. If I’d had Foursquare on my last trip, I’d have been able to access a tonne of short, useful stuff in an instant. Definitely keen to use it next trip.
Realise people I sort of know have similar likes and patterns
When you start on Foursquare, you can add contacts from Gmail, Twitter etc. Over the weekend past, there were people like jjprojects (we’ve never met) doing really similar stuff as me. Was cool to watch. Maybe we should be friends in real life.
Risk-reduced ‘new’
When you’re new to a city or even an area, doing something new is always risky: you may waste your time or worse. Seeing a food recommendation from a friend like Ian Lyons at a particular cafe is more compelling to me than both the menu and waiter’s recommendation because I have a feeling for what Ian’s about and have known him for years.
Curiosity competition
Every time you tell Foursquare you’ve arrived somewhere (ie you ‘check in’), you get points that earn you badges and titles. This weirded me out initially but it’s a bit of fun.
The maps
4mapper and Social Great are just the start. Watch what the masses are doing and get ideas about where to go and what to do.
What I don’t like about Foursquare
Outing where I live
What if someone puts my personal address up? Some people ‘check in’ to their home – but a complete stranger could tell Foursquare where I live. Then…
Push-bullying
If I had push notifications on, had my address outed, a bunch of people could flash-spam me (sorry, made that up) by telling Foursquare they are in my house.
Push-noise
I think I got 3 push notifications in the space of a few minutes and decided it was time to turn it off. You’ll probably do the same.
People can cheat
Sebastian Vasta is the mayor of where I work and I don’t think he’s ever even been there. If he did, I’d Rick-roll him for his mayor-dom anyway.
Social network spam
I get how this could be useful but it’s annoying when people have Foursquare linked to all of their social networks… and you’re ‘friends’ with them in all of their social networks. I get it. I get it. You’re having expensive wine in an expensive restaurant, while I just put my kids to bed and don’t need to know that EVERYWHERE I’M ONLINE right now.
What I’m curious about in the future
Offline impact
Overseas, small businesses have been seen to offer freebies (eg free coffee) to the mayor of their places. But I’m curious to see – if this takes off in Australia – what weirdness takes place. For instance, will physical altercations happen over who’s mayor of a place? Will an Accused used their documented (but not verified) Foursquare behaviour as an alibi in court? And so on.
Dealing with scale
If Foursquare does get big, it will be interesting to see how they allow people to create groups and sub-groups, to minimise noise, to facilitate short-term but high-impact use (eg exploration competitions, conference use, etc).
Getting more like-minded
Currently, the ‘like-mindedness’ of Foursquare is purely defined by people in my social network – people I’ve already determined are a bit like me. I’m keen to see what happens when ‘like-mindedness’ incorporates data, words and behaviour about/by me and people I know (or don’t know) from other channels.
Tiered status systems
As the community gets bigger, we’ll need ways of deciphering who’s worth listening to – and about what – through the noise.
What do you think?
Will Foursquare take off in Australia? Will it be something else? How are you using it?
Badge photo by @naveen.
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