Foursquare, when I hear that I think of that game I used to play at recess with the rules I could never quite remember. In the internet world Foursquare is the latest social media app that seems to have everyone "checking in" to win. Win what you might ask? Status, badges and bragging rights. Foursquare is a location based social media application, where users "check in" at various locations all over the world. The goal of Foursquare is to unite users with friends and other travellers to unlock the cities in which they live, and travel. As a user you can see where your friends are and recommend different sites, restaurants and activities.
Foursquare was founded by Dennis Crowley, Naveen Selvadurai, Harry Haymann, Nathan Folkman, and Mike Singleton.
Dennis previously worked on a similar project called dogeball.com which was bought out by Google in 2005 and never caught on quite like Foursquare has.
This video is an interesting dialogue from various industry specialists including co-founder Dennis Crowley about the background of Foursquare its various uses and other social media trends.
The site is extremely user friendly with apps for Blackberry, iPhone, Palm and Android making it easy to check in with out the use of a computer. Foursquare is also linked to twitter and facebook making it a logical add on for most people who enjoy merging their various social media outlets. People who use Foursquare get incredibly invested in the "game" aspect of it for the bragging rights but also because businesses have started pairing with the app to offer freebies to "mayors" including drinks and meals, and various other discounts.
But...WHY?
personally, I'm not a fan of this particular application. to me Foursquare seems like a self initiated big brother. You update the members (and lets face it they're mostly strangers) of your exact location. To me, Foursquare seems to be a mugger's dream; if I was looking for an easy mark - I'd look no further then this application, for that reason alone I didn't sign up to see it in use.
Even though they seem to have a stringent terms of use policy it still feels like a blatant over share of your personal whereabouts. And despite that participating in anything that is unlawful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, libelous, deceptive, fraudulent, invasive of another's privacy, tortious, obscene, offensive, or profane; is against their terms of use I am forced to cite the Craigslist murders as an example of violation of on-line trust.
Basically - in this day in age when we can be tracked by cameras or our cell phone usage, how much information is TOO much information?
for a different view check out Jenna's take on Foursquare
for my "elevator pitch" watch below (please don't)
Is the personal security angle really valid? You cite one incident. Many more on streets everyday but have nothing to do with the internet or location sharing.
ReplyDeleteI hope that you up date with a synopsis of the hour long video that you have inserted. Gillmour Gang evolved from a podcast, very credible chat and boiling down the hour for us would be a great value add.
Four square is mapping the "media atmosphere" that is being added to our planet. An atmosphere that we will one day take for granted as much as we do the weather & air we navigate through each day.
Thanks for highlighting that it works across several mobile platforms.
Hey Katie, I liked how you focused on a different perspective of Foursquare. It seems like after we blogged about it, Foursquare was popping up everywhere, from partnerships with Metro newspaper to clips on the news.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I can certainly see the benefits and growing trend of having a geo-tagging app that provides a sense of community and patronage at certain establishments, there is still a privacy/TMI issue regarding the app.
I've gotten quite a few varying opinions on my post about Foursquare, and people seem to either love the idea, or hate the fact their exact location is on display at all times.
After Alex and Luke came into our class a few weeks ago and told us about Gowalla--a similar location based app--it seems like geo-tagging apps are the newest "fad" in social media. I don't know how long they will stick around for, but I'm definitely not an avid user of either yet. Nice post!