Daemon Group Blog

Foursquare to go full circle

Posted on 24. May, 2010 by Lachlan Hibbert-Wells in Social Media

Foursquare is a strange beast. At first the competitive nature of the app, and my own competitiveness spurred me into checking in at every possible location I could.

Mayorships were mounting.
Badges were building.

Life on Foursquare was good.

A few weeks on, same thing everyday – I started to lose interest.

Check-ins became less frequent, and there was no real benefit to me being there despite holding no less than 20 Mayor badges.

Two things have changed in the last week.

Firstly numbers are up and according to socialmedianews.com.au, it’s growing at 15,000 users a day.

In the last 5 days I have been ousted from 6 places as Mayor, more and more people are using and frequenting the places I frequent more frequently.

Someone even ousted me from my local police station, and then friended me. I have to say I ignored that one, as who knows why he was there so many times.

Secondly a friend of mine, let’s call him Adam, has started to really add value to my life on Foursquare. Everywhere he checks in, he includes something worthwhile, and even if I am not there, nor going to that location, it still somehow adds some value.

Whether it’s a traffic tip, menu recommendation, advice on the best seats, mentioning that he is at work on a Saturday or a comment about the weather in another city, I’m finding the check in, plus info is the way to go for a more productive social application.

Foursquare users and useage in my view will go through exactly what Twitter did. Users sign up, tweet or check in a few times and then disappear. Weeks or even months later they go full circle and come back.

If we all add that little extra a bit more often, then it will provide for a more engaging application, and in turn more businesses will start to use it the way we are seeing it rolling out in the US, and that’s one thing I would like to see more of.

Some great commercial uses have arisen in the last few weeks, check out this Trendwatch blog.

So what other uses are out there? Have you seen something worthwhile that should be shared? Would love your comments!!

Tags: Badges, Check-in, Commercial uses, Foursquare, Mayor, Ousted, socia media, social networking