Have you noticed an increase in tweets and Facebook updates having to do with checking in, or becoming a mayor of something? Has this caused you to stare at their updates in utter confusion? If so, your friends have joined FourSquare, a location-based social network to help you connect with friends using GPS via your mobile device.
Although it’s not the first location-based service to exist, visits to the site have increased 50% between December ’09 and January ’10, and increased 200% since November. So what has made FourSquare so popular? Hopefully the following walkthrough will end your confusion:
Walkthrough of FourSquare Setup
Since FourSquare can be a bit confusing if you’re a newbie, let’s quickly walk through how to get set up:
- Head over to FourSquare’s website to set up an account.
- Since this application isn’t any fun without friends, use their friend finder to import friends via Gmail, Twitter, and Facebook.
- Link your account to your Twitter and Facebook accounts. Again, this is all about friend connections, so I’d recommend this.
- Get FourSquare on your mobile device. You can find FourSquare for the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and Palm Pre.
Alright, now you’re all set to begin checking in. A check-in is something you theoretically will do every time you arrive at a destination.
How to Check In on FourSquare
The procedure may vary a bit depending on your mobile device, but I have a Droid so that’s what I’ll be describing.
- Log in to your brand new FourSquare application
- Your GPS will automatically find places near you now. If you see your location on the list, select it and check in.
- If you do not see your location, bring up your menu screen and click “Search.” Search for the name of your location. If the location comes up, select it and check in.
- If you still do not see your location, bring up your menu screen and click “Add Venue.” Enter the venue name and address, and click “Add Venue.” Search for the venue you just added, and check in.
How to see what friends are up to
Seeing your friends’ activity on FourSquare is very easy. On the homepage of your mobile application, you’ll see a “Friends” tab. This tab is a newsfeed of all your friends’ whereabouts. A great benefit of FourSquare is that if you check the app when you go out at night and a friend is at a bar nearby, you could stop by and say hi.
Of course, use your best judgment here, as this could prove to be an awkward situation if you’re just an acquaintance or Twitter follower. But if you’re at a conference looking for like-minded people to meet up with, or want to find out where your Twitter followers at the conference are hanging out, FourSquare can be a very useful tool.
Adding Tips and To-Dos
One factor that makes FourSquare unique from other location-based applications are the tips and to-dos. You can submit tips about locations to let your friends and the general public know key things about a venue. It could be a weekly discount, a must-see museum exhibit, a VIP promotion, etc. You can also enter this item as a “to-do” if you haven’t done it yet. Once you check off your to-do as a tip, and once other people check off that they’ve completed your tips and/or to-dos, you will be rewarded with points.
You can add tips and to-dos from your mobile device (select the location, then bring up the menu and click “Add a Tip”) or from the FourSquare website. As you and other people in your city use your mobile FourSquare more and more, you will find the GPS tips to be a valuable way to find out about drink specials, dinner discounts, theater discounts, etc. as you roam your city.
FourSquare is a game
FourSquare isn’t just a device to let your friends know where you are, but it’s also a game.
Points: You earn points for every check-in (and no, you can’t cheat and check-in to the same place 10 times in a row). You get more points for being adventurous (exploring different parts of the city), going to multiple places in the same day, for your tips that other people try, and for to-do’s you complete.
Mayorship: If you’ve checked in to one location the most, you’ll become the Mayor of that location. This might sound completely ridiculous, but soon you’ll find yourself feeling territorial over your mayorship status; remembering to check in to maintain your status, and competing with your friends. And since some restaurants and bars are now offering free drinks to the “Mayor” of their business, people are finding incentives to check in often.
The benefits of joining FourSquare
In summary, these are the benefits of joining FourSquare:
- Let your friends/followers know where you are if you want to be found (at a conference, at a bar, situations where you’re looking to be social). If you don’t want to be found, there’s an instant solution for you: don’t update your FourSquare!
- Get discounts at participating businesses for being the mayor of their locations. As FourSquare takes off, we will see this become more prevalent, especially in large hubs like New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco
- Find tips on where to go near you, wherever you are. We’ve all been in that situation where we’re downtown with friends and can’t decide where to go for dinner. Now you’ll be able to find other people’s tips and to-dos via GPS to make your decision easier.
- It’s a game. It’s fun!
- It’s very possibly the next “big thing,” just like Twitter was, so you might as well try it out to know what it’s all about. If you don’t like it, delete your account.
Also, don’t overthink it. I didn’t participate in Four Square for a while because I was convinced that it was a stalker tool. But then I realized that my application wasn’t going to automatically update my location, and I don’t have to check in to every place I go.
Have you joined FourSquare yet? What do you like about it? What don’t you like? What third party applications do you think would make FourSquare an even better utility?
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{ 6 comments }
Guess those of us who still don't have phones with internet are out of the loop on this one
Extremely helpful post. Thanks much.
@juliebonnheath
How about some Foursquare don'ts?.. like:
1. Don't add or check into your home. Foursqure is supposed to be about being social and alerting your friends when you go out, not when you're staying in.
2. Don't check into your place of work. It kind of defeats the fun of the game when the host checks into the local restaurant every time she has a shift and making it virtually impossible for any customer to ever achieve “mayor” status.
3. Don't check into places where your friends can't or won't meet you. I'm sick of seeing tweets like “I'm at BP gas station.” Who cares? You're there for 5 minutes pumping gasoline and then you leave, none of your friends care.
The biggest downfall of Foursquare, in my opinion, is that the venues are all user-submitted, rather than linked to a database like Yelp. So you wind up with duplicates of the same place, incorrect addresses, venues that don't belong, etc. Maybe this problem will work itself out. If not, I can see Foursquare getting on a whole lot of peoples' nerves really quickly.
Hi Rob. Thanks for your comment, you raise some excellent points!
1. I definitely agree about not checking into your home. Checking into FourSquare at all has its risks; have you heard of http://pleaserobme.com ? It's a stream of updates from FourSquare that shows when users check-in somewhere that is not their home, the idea being that if they’re not home, you can go rob them. You can read about FourSquare's response here: http://tcrn.ch/bU4T16.
2. Checking into your place of work depends on the business. I work at an office, so we don't have any customers who would want/need to compete for mayor status. We're just competing with each other (which is actually kind of annoying, since we're all here every day, so it really just comes down to who gets here first in the morning). At a bar/restaurant, this might matter more.
3. I was guilty of this for a while! But I don't check in at grocery stores or places I run my errands as much anymore, but I still want to get points, so I do sometimes. I think the mobile apps can definitely be improved if they added a checkbox below each check-in: “Share on your social networks?” While I would still like to check in at these mundane places for points, I'd definitely rather not share the info with all of Twitter, and it's too much of a hassle to check my privacy settings each and every time.
You're welcome!
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