Do You Check In?
You know what Foursquare is right? That new(ish) social media application that allows you to "check-in" at places so your friends know where you are. Also you can earn badges and if you check in enough, or at least more than someone else, at any given location you can become "mayor" of that place and your can earn all kinds of badges. Makes sense, right. We're all doing it right?
A couple of weeks ago Foursquare hit a major milestone, 100 million check-ins. Sounds very impressive and it is don't get me wrong. But if most users of this application are like me, then I think there could have been twice or 3 times as many check-ins by now. Since I joined a couple of weeks back, I've tried to be diligent in my check-ins, but either I forget, the server is overwhelmed ("A surprising new error has occurred") or the gps just doesn't know where I am and won't update. All this to say, I'm not really sure of the point of Foursquare and its competitors, Loopt, Gowalla and Brightkite. Yeah, sure I didn't understand the point of Twitter at first but that makes more sense to me than knowing that your friends checked in at the subway.
Okay, maybe I don't have any friends, currently I only have 2 people on my friend list on Foursquare. But it just seems that what with text messaging, twitter, facebook there's no need for yet another thing to plug you in further to the system.
There are incentives for using Twitter, as mentioned above, and Facebook as a place to connect with long lost friends and relatives, to play Farmville or just cyber-stalk your ex. Foursquare is still an emerging social media app and as such there are always kinks that need to be worked out. How people protect themselves in this new space, some have already experienced the dangers of giving away your exact location.
I'm not sure how often I'll be "checking in", but if they begin to offer more incentives like this I'll be more likely to use it.
A couple of weeks ago Foursquare hit a major milestone, 100 million check-ins. Sounds very impressive and it is don't get me wrong. But if most users of this application are like me, then I think there could have been twice or 3 times as many check-ins by now. Since I joined a couple of weeks back, I've tried to be diligent in my check-ins, but either I forget, the server is overwhelmed ("A surprising new error has occurred") or the gps just doesn't know where I am and won't update. All this to say, I'm not really sure of the point of Foursquare and its competitors, Loopt, Gowalla and Brightkite. Yeah, sure I didn't understand the point of Twitter at first but that makes more sense to me than knowing that your friends checked in at the subway.
Okay, maybe I don't have any friends, currently I only have 2 people on my friend list on Foursquare. But it just seems that what with text messaging, twitter, facebook there's no need for yet another thing to plug you in further to the system.
We use Twitter for various reasons, the main being vanity. Now our random musings can be viewed by not just our friends and family but by the millions of Twitter users. And every tweet is now saved for posterity by The Library Congress. So what you had for dinner last night may be known for generations yet to come.
The only benefit that I've gleaned so far is that if I check-in 10x at the Whole Foods in Columbus Circle, I can get a free water bottle. Really, that's it?
I guess as more businesses come on board there will be more deals available. But really that's not the problem, it's making people more aware of the application; those outside of the media bubble. People like my sister, a young 20 something urbanite, definitely in the target audience, had no idea what Foursquare was. How's that for reaching your audience?
There are incentives for using Twitter, as mentioned above, and Facebook as a place to connect with long lost friends and relatives, to play Farmville or just cyber-stalk your ex. Foursquare is still an emerging social media app and as such there are always kinks that need to be worked out. How people protect themselves in this new space, some have already experienced the dangers of giving away your exact location.
I'm not sure how often I'll be "checking in", but if they begin to offer more incentives like this I'll be more likely to use it.
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