What is the point of FourSquare?
I downloaded the FourSquare app for my iPhone because I saw a friend had it through Facebook. This friend is social media savvy and I thought I should try and keep up.
After downloading it and taking one look I thought to myself “what is the point of this Four Square?” I just didn’t get it.
Basically, with FourSquare you check in at various locations wherever you are and it notifies your friends and also gives you points and badges.
I don’t really care about the points or the badges, but when I became the mayor of my favourite local haunt on FourSquare I was, for better or worse, pretty stoked. Being the mayor means you are there the most, meaning you probably go there quite a bit. In this particular instant I can assure you that nobody else that goes there in this small town uses FourSquare, but hey, I’ll have a leg up when this thing becomes popular.
So what is the point? Well, one day when I was in Vancouver I got an email notification saying my media savvy friend was at the pub down the street. Cool! That must be the point. I was just down the street. I could walk down there and say hi.
In this day in age when time is short, and we keep up with friends via status updates, it’s nice to be able to connect face-to-face. FourSquare is a tool that faciliates that, but with the convenience of a status update. It let’s people know where you are so you can meet. It probably also works in advance should you want to avoid someone irritating.
I’m not sure that FourSquare is relevant in every city just yet, but in a bustling metropolis like Manhattan or LA it could be a very cool thing. It could also be a great thing at conventions where you would like to meet up with a colleague or meet face-to-face with a virtual friend. I recently read about about how Four Square is being used to connect people at South By Southwest. After using it for a while I’m not sure that FourSquare is quite there yet, but if you could merge FourSquare with Twitter with OpenTable I think we’d have something revolutionary.
JUST BE CAREFUL
I dont see how your anecdotal example helps you to conclude Foursquare is kinda cool. Every time I ask some user what the point is, they cannot give me any concrete answer.
As a marketer, I will push advertising on Foursquare just to get more money from my clients. But as a human being, demand-side economics and all – this whole thing is pointless to me.I couldn’t give two ships if my friends check into a place or not. I couldn’t give two ships if my friend is coincidentally 2 blocks down the street – because unless I have plans with him/her, who cares?The mayorship, badges and points? Most definitely – who gives a ship? The social media space pisses me off because all these people make up new crap, the useless media keeps talking about it, and bottomless is all the Facebook and Foursquares ADDS NOTHING to a person’s life.
[...] earned the “I’m on a boat!” badge on FourSquare. If you’re wondering what the point is, that’s fine. I think half the point of foursquare for me is earning these stupid badges. [...]