Foursquare and its impact

What are the most popular social networking site that you commonly hear of recently?

FACEBOOK? TWITTER? yes all these sites are those things that consume most of your time while you're on the computer. If thats not for you? It happens to me everyday! I spend most of my time on Facebook and Tumblr!

So what is FOURSQUARE?

So now, let me introduce you to a not so famous location-based social media service that allows you to "check-in" to various locations on your phone and see where your friends are!

Lets say you are having ice cream at Ben & Jerry's @ Dempsy, you can check in to this location on foursqaure and see who else is here, and tips to the location.

Foursquare has applications for phones such as iPhone, Blackberry, Andriod, Windows Mobile and Mobile Web for those without platforms mentioned above.

For me I use the Mobile Web as I'm using a Nokia N97 and there isn't any ready applications for me to download for free.

Example of how the page would look like on my phone,

Good Stuff Good Stuff People!
(This is how a Super Mayor Badge looks like)

When you are a "Mayor" in foursquare is basically the person who checked into that particular place the most number of times.

And behold the power of being "Mayor" of certain places! B-E-N-E-F-I-T-S! yes for certain retail shops and F&B outlet do give discounts or freebies to them. This is when those savvy business owners take Foursquare to it's advantage and use it as a marketing tool to reward their frequent customers.

For more information on the Foursquare specials in Singapore go to this website .

Why are people motivated to check into Foursquare?

Badges are the reason! Foursquare have many different badges to unlock! Perhaps this is one of the many reasons why people would be motivated to get out of home and meet friends to try to go new places and earn more badges.

Examples of some badges I have earned so far:

Honestly after using it for more than a month, It has become a habit for me to check-in to where I am and see where my friends are at.

Oh yes, and as mentioned before! Being mayor of a place gives you BENEFITS! So it makes people aim for that.

Wanna see what cool virtual badges you can earn from Foursquare? Go HERE!

What can you do with the locations you check-in to?

On Foursquare, when you check into a location, you can add tips for the location or add to-dos to remind yourself of places you want to or intend to go.

Okay so not all social networking sites are perfect isn’t it? Foursquare would have its fair share of nay-sayers too! And apparently, Foursquare is getting so popular lately that it is making the headlines a few times already.

Some News article related to Foursquare I found online are

1) China blocks Foursquare after check in to Tiananman Sqaure.

(and this became quite a big issue as china has blocked Facebook and Twitter, however people made use of Foursquare to add tips after checking into Tiananman Square and connecting the comment to Twitter)

2) Singapore deal for Foursquare

Some Reasons why people are against the usage of Foursquare?

I have thought of a few reasons and asked around regarding why people are against the idea of using Foursquare.

Some would say that it would intrude your privacy by updating your locations – but let me explain this, its self-check ins and you can choose to hide the check-ins for your own viewing only. This gives it more privacy, as you might not want your friends to know where you are when you’re dating at certain places but just want to check in so you can see the “history” and still reminesice on the places you have been to in the past.

Some say that why would you want to tell people where you are? – And you know what you would eventually have days when you’re seating at canteen all alone and one of your friends just rings you up cause they saw your Foursquare check-in were somewhere near them, and tah-dah! Now you have company!

How awesome is Foursquare?! After reading this don’t you have the urge to just download the Foursquare application and start checking in to places now?

Hope you will benefit from Foursquare!

References:

• http://mashable.com/2010/06/04/china-blocks-foursquare/
• http://mattersofgrey.com/foursquare-badge-list/
• http://www.zdnetasia.com/singapore-deal-for-foursquare-62200362.htm
• http://sparklette.net/tech/foursquare-mayor-deals/
• http://foursquare.com/