Not for Squares

Let's say you sold shoes in New York City.

Let's also say that you knew Susie Q loved to buy shoes and lived in New York City.

And then suppose you knew that Susie just happened to be having lunch with friends in your neighborhood.

Now what if you could invite Susie over to see some new Manolo Blahnik's you have in stock - and that if she shows up in the next hour, she can get a discount?

It may not be quite that perfect, but that is the idea behind a kinda-new geolocating social networking app, Foursquare. It actually sounds, in theory, more like a game: "Foursquare is a web and mobile application that allows registered users to connect with friends and update their location. Points are awarded on weekends and non-business hours for "checking in" at venues. Users can choose to have theirTwitter and/or their Facebook accounts updated when they check in." (Wikipedia)

Though I can't confirm it, I'm guessing that the name is a play on the game Four Square, which is a game played with a basketball in which players attempt to score points by hitting a target square. Each player (four) stands in a target zone, or quadrant. So the idea is to score points by putting the ball in a location.That's kind of what Foursquare.com is all about, too.

Users get "badges" and other awards depending on when and how often they check in at participating locations. Your location information and badge status are reported to your "friend" network, with the added bonus of your being able to share your location and activity with your buds. So let's say you're out for a late-night drink at a popular hot spot; anybody on your network will learn that, and can join you there.

Again, from Wikipedia: "Foursquare started out in 2009 with limited availability in only 100 worldwide metro areas: Amsterdam, Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver,Detroit, Helsinki, Houston, Las Vegas, London, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis/St. Paul, New York City, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, San Diego,San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, Washington,D.C., Seoul, and Bombay, India. In January 2010, Foursquare changed their location model to allow check-ins from any location worldwide.  As of March 2010, the service had 500,000 users internationally.

Foursquare currently has iPhone, Android, Palm, webOS, BlackBerry, andWindows Mobile application.

In February 2010, the company entered into new commercial partnerships with Zagat, Bravo, Conde Nast, The New York Times and several other firms to offer tips, specials and new badges to followers."

Right now, Foursquare's stats look like this:<
Over 500,000 users
Over 1,000,000 badges have been awarded
Over 1.4 million venues with 1200 offering specials
Over 15.5 million check-ins.

So while the application really does target big cities and the young adult out-and-about crowd, it's easy to see how marketers might be salivating at the idea of an interested group getting just-in-time messaging that they might actually appreciate getting, versus the old "throw enough stuff against a wall" model of advertising.

There are a few things to be said about the privacy aspect of this application (and frankly, any of the many geo-locating applications that are just gaining popularity recently). There is always a danger in letting (potentially) the world know you're not at home, or in letting the world know that you're a single woman out at 2am. Duly noted, and the jury is still out on this aspect of this type of social networking. About that I can only comment, it didn't take all that long for criminals to figure out how to capitalize on Craigslist, either.

Let's see where this one takes us!

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