Imagine having the chance to track about where you have been, and how often, in a manner that is completely under your control –which means no secret logs about where you are unless you explicitly log into the service. Now imagine that service providing you with virtual tokens that will allow you to have a user interface that looks good to view on your smart phone.
Sound pretty silly right?
But imagine that same service expanded to you social network and thousands of people in the same area where you are. Now it is not so silly anymore. Now it can actually affect the flow of customers in business establishments and not it actually matters that you get to visit the local pub more often than Gail from accounting.
Yes, this is why Foursquare works and this is why companies such as Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook are trying to get a piece of the Foursquare pie. There are only so many things you can do with social networking, but this one actually allows you to socialize since the main point of the service is to get you out of your house.
Thanks to smart phones naturally having GPS features, users will be able to verify their actual location on the service. This also means that getting a rank of Mayor in a frequently visited area is going to be challenge because you can expect that other Foursquare users will be competing with you.
Of course, Foursquare is still starting out. While it has already expanded in terms of locations included in the service to the number of users, the technology application is still at its’ early steps. Pretty soon, we might also be seeing some location combos –bonuses for visiting certain places one after the other (with real life incentives from the establishments) and more.
Tags: Foursquare, GPS, Social-networking