Foursquare recently released a fun yet very interesting infographic that described the state of the foursquare-sphere for 2010. the graphic reveals the who what where when why and how of foursquare and tallies up the numbers from 2010.
- restaurants
- Work/office
- Store/shops
- Travel places (airports, hotel, train stations)
- Nightlife (clubs and bars)
- Arts & Entertainment (galleries, movie theatres)
- Parks and rec
- College campuses
- New York Penn Station
- Wynn Hotel, Las Vegas
- NY Museum of Modern Art
- Whole Foods, Austin, TX
- Pike Place Market, Seattle
- Terminal 5, NY
My Take on Foursquare
Like social media in general, businesses are still trying to figure out why social media, why foursquare and how to capitalize on it and leverage the apps and services into $$. From my perspective, business owners, at the very least, need to take over ownership of their information and listings and providing accurate information about their business to the users. Foursquare (and other social apps) offer tools and analytics to business owners and these need to be used.
The users are still suffering from a rapid burnout and many seem to drop off from using foursquare and other checkin services. I’ve noticed many of the "techie, geeky, early adopters" that they seem to drop off in use mainly due to lack of reward and simple boredom. Many of us elect to drop one service and take up using another, newer service to see what it has to offer. Simple mayor rewards are boring and not effective in my opinion as they tend to reward the same, small click of regular visitors to an establishment. For user that want to get more out of foursquare I suggest looking at some of the third party apps and tools that build on foursquare, enabling you to do some cool things with your checkin data and history. For example, there are tools that enable you to create a historical map (see WeePlaces link below) of your travels, displaying a cool time series map of your travels… way cool! Foursquare also becomes a little more fun when it is integrated with other apps and tools, for example, link your foursquare account with facebook so your close friends can comment and enjoy your travels or use foursquare with Waze navigation app to make that service even more fun.
Note, the author, Glenn Letham (@gletham) is a long-time foursquare user with Super User status and has logged more than 815 checkins, accumulated 24 badges, completed 51 to-do’s, and currently holds 9 mayorships (although has relinquished dozens)
Related Articles:
- Social Location Tip – foursquare Expands Ambassador Program
- Mash Up Your Social Media Location data from foursquare, Brightkite, and Flickr with GeoCommons
- WeePlaces from Movity – Time Lapse Report of My foursquare, facebook and GoWalla checkins
