Foursquare
by Antonio Wells
Mar 22, 2010 6:00 AM –
Install
Foursquare helps you find new ways to explore your city. See where your friends are, learn about the places they frequent and unlock rewards as you travel.
Price: Free
Content Rating: Medium Maturity
Pros
- Cool social sharing service that records the places you check-in (visit)
- Awarded Badges as you check-in more places
- Battery conscious, not always running in the background
- Share check-in status on Facebook and Twitter
- Weekly Leaderboards feature
- Convenient feature to add missing places to the list
- Features Yelp integration
Cons
- Long delay when recognizing places via GPS
- Some places don’t populate in the list, however there is a convenient feature to add missing places to the list
- Could have potential safety risks broadcasting you exact location with date/time (use responsibly)
Features:
Foursquare Android App is the tech geeks hip new social sharing tool on iPhone and Android that records the places you visit called “Check-Ins”. Invite Friends, View their Status, as well as broadcast your status (called Shouts) to Friends. Foursquare has badges for various levels of check-in accomplishments; they range anywhere from Newbie all the way up to Mayor (which means you’re the first person to check-in the location). See who has the most check-ins among your friends, your city or all Foursquare users in the Leaderboards. View a history of your checking-ins, see places nearby that you can check into, and if you’re in a place that’s not on the list and want to check-in you can easily add it. Very convenient feature as it prefills address information, all you need is to provide a name.
With many major and independent players swarming into location-based social networking, Foursquare was one of the first independent companies to blaze fire to the trend. Look out for Android app Gowalla with its own twist on checking services, Google released Buzz, Twitter is now location aware, and Facebook is following suit.
Services like Foursquare and Gowalla actually add a serious value for local businesses, local business aggregators like Yelp, and marketers. As their membership grows with crowd-sourced real-time information, they will have comprehensive information to show business owners deeper demographics about their customer base.
Video: Foursquare
Watch on Mobile
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FourSquare Map
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FourSquare Nearby
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FourSquare Friends
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FourSquare Badges
Usefulness:
Not really useful but the next hot thing in social networking. It’s all the buzz in the tech world! One use case could be if you’re traveling and want to share the many places you visited with your friends without typing a note detailing it; they can just see it on Foursquare.
Ease of Use:
The best way to get started with Foursquare is to simply checking in places along your routine errands. It becomes much more fun if you find friends on the social networking platform.
Gripe Alert: long delay when recognizing places via GPS. I had a few cases where the place would not recognize upon initial check-in… it wasn’t until after I left did it populate.
Frequently Used:
It’s intended for use whenever you’re filling the need to share your location with friends.
Interface:
The user interface is optimized for mobile.