And in one of the updates of the app, the developers added in some other very cool ideas, such as checking in at venues gives you points. You can then compare your points with your friends to see who checks in more often. The catch is that new places offer more points than going to the same place, and if you go to the same place more than anyone else, then you can become mayor of that place and get even more bonus points for checking in. So it's got this bit of either explore more places to get more points than your friends, or go to the places you like a whole lot more often. And remember, you don't just compete with your friends, you also compete with yourself for your 7 day best (not weekly best, any 7 day combination best!).
It's not hard to see why I was hooked immediately, it's really fun to check-in at places and show were I've been to my small group of friends that have smartphones. Also, because I like walking around a lot I almost always have more check-ins than my friends to show off. But in truth, I do play the game fair because the fun is in showing where you've been and how often you go. In fact, I play so fair with the game that I actually hope it expands and get's bigger. I'd like more integration with other applications and more integration with the real world.
| Anyway, I've noticed a few things while using Foursquare that I'll share. So here is my list of the good's and the bad's of Foursquare that I have noticed in the short time I've been using it (approximately a month). I'm including a link to their website as well, should anyone feel the need to try it out. |
Foursquare's Best Aspects
Let me start by simply saying that I love Foursquare! It has this addictive quality that comes with getting check-in points that makes me want to get out and go exploring. And since it is a friendly game of competition for the most check-in points, I can really enjoy using this application with my friends.
By far the best aspect of Foursquare is the point system implemented to compare how well you are checking in with your fiends. Not only does this give a very easy-to-see comparison of which friends are checking in more and going outside to get check-ins more, but it also makes using foursquare a lot of fun. I can say to one of my friends, who tends to stay inside and never get out, that she needs to get out and point out how low her points are. Similarly, I also have recently told a friend that I can really tell she's been sight seeing while on her trip because of all the check-ins. In about two seconds I know which friends have been out exploring and which ones haven't, and that's without having to read long, tedious feeds of where they are and have been.
But when I do get curious of where they have been, for instance with my friend that is out in New York City sight seeing, I can simply go back to the front page and look up her postings. So in a fun way, even though I could not join her on her trip to the Big Apple, I still can see what she is up to.
And to top all of that off, the point system is made beautifully to encourage getting out of your comfort zone and trying new things. I love going to new restaurants, entering local shops, and walking around new hiking trails. Well, foursquare loves to give me a reason to do that by giving bonus points, a small bit of encouragement, for getting out and actually exploring. And if that's not good enough, whenever I feel like I've ran out of places to explore close-by, it has an explore button that tells me more places that I have never been to.
I also have come to like how Foursquare and Instagram are linked together. If I take a picture and upload it to Instagram, I can label the location on Foursquare and have it show up in my Foursquare feed. This is great for my friends and me, because a lot of the time I don't check my Instagram feed! However, I do check my Foursquare feed, so I will see a friend's picture pop-up on there.
By far the best aspect of Foursquare is the point system implemented to compare how well you are checking in with your fiends. Not only does this give a very easy-to-see comparison of which friends are checking in more and going outside to get check-ins more, but it also makes using foursquare a lot of fun. I can say to one of my friends, who tends to stay inside and never get out, that she needs to get out and point out how low her points are. Similarly, I also have recently told a friend that I can really tell she's been sight seeing while on her trip because of all the check-ins. In about two seconds I know which friends have been out exploring and which ones haven't, and that's without having to read long, tedious feeds of where they are and have been.
But when I do get curious of where they have been, for instance with my friend that is out in New York City sight seeing, I can simply go back to the front page and look up her postings. So in a fun way, even though I could not join her on her trip to the Big Apple, I still can see what she is up to.
And to top all of that off, the point system is made beautifully to encourage getting out of your comfort zone and trying new things. I love going to new restaurants, entering local shops, and walking around new hiking trails. Well, foursquare loves to give me a reason to do that by giving bonus points, a small bit of encouragement, for getting out and actually exploring. And if that's not good enough, whenever I feel like I've ran out of places to explore close-by, it has an explore button that tells me more places that I have never been to.
I also have come to like how Foursquare and Instagram are linked together. If I take a picture and upload it to Instagram, I can label the location on Foursquare and have it show up in my Foursquare feed. This is great for my friends and me, because a lot of the time I don't check my Instagram feed! However, I do check my Foursquare feed, so I will see a friend's picture pop-up on there.
Foursquare's Worst Aspects
Before I start with the worst aspects of Foursquare, I would like to note that most of these are problems of the application itself but more so the users of the application. I will also describe how the creators can actually fix these aspects, since providing just criticism is not really helpful to anyone.
By far the worst aspect of the application is the people who don't seem to understand that it is a personal application about exploring. They just want the points to compete with friends, so anything that is close enough to check into is what they check into daily just for quick points and mayorships. This bugs me, if you want to play a game about earning points but not moving much then start eating more and add some pounds, the scale will show your score. But if you want to play a game that's actually about going places and showing the world you are going places, the please play Foursquare.
Here's an example of when I've seen this happen. One of my friend's works in downtown Boulder, Colorado and on office-mate decided to put up a Foursquare location in the office for his Mom. Now, his Mom was set to be viewed in public because he listed her as a strip club or some other adult rated retail, and every day people would come into the office and check-in at his Mom. But no one could ever beat him with check-ins because he always had one more point at their work because he set it up and waited for them to figure it out. And then he lost mayorship of his Mom to a little girl. Why? Because this girl thought the fun of the app was to beat all your friends in points and checked in daily (including weekends) at his Mom from her house. I'm not joking and this is a true story, this kid's Mom is currently being ruled by a teenage girl. There's something wrong with that.
But catching something small like this is actually really hard, how do you weed out the users that actually play it correctly from the ones that are check-in addicts? Plain and simply, you can't. I mean, I've personally checked-in to a place that I had left about ten minutes prior before remembering that I could use the foursquare app, so saying you have to be so-and-so close is out because of forgetful people like me. Similarly, they don't want to ban having multiple check-ins quickly because of my sort of situation. What the creators can do is say the most check-ins you can get within a ten-minute time range is two or three, and then you have to wait ten minutes to check in again or else you get no points/mayorships until an hour has passed. This at least takes out the people that sit in their home, completely ten different places in a couple of minutes, and then starts their day.
Another sad downfall to the Foursquare system is that right now all check-ins have to be done at point locations. Point locations work well for things like stores, restaurants, malls, and parks, but they fail on things such as rivers, hiking trails, and beaches. Each of these will want check-ins too, but they can be miles long (easily) and so they won't exactly appear on the Foursquare tab when you go to check-in. As of right now, to get around this you need to type in the name of the place and just choose the closest location, but hopefully in the future they will map out these with lines or paths or something so that it recognizes the river or the hiking trail that you are on.
The Future of Foursquare
I don't see foursquare going anywhere any time soon. It is fun, addicting, and really cool. I can see it sort of dying down a bit, I can see it becoming more integrated with one of the large social networks, but I do not see the whole thing going away.
What I do see is the foursquare team working and expanding what the social app can do. For instance, I see them taking the idea of marking yourself on a map to the whole next level. Currently, you can mark yourself at a store/landmark or at a general location. I see the foursquare team combining larger, more general locations together and then giving them a map of the locations inside. Here's a few examples:
The Spotted Canvas uses the foursquare® application programming interface but is not endorsed or certified by Foursquare Labs, Inc. All of the foursquare® logos (including all badges) and trademarks displayed on this website are the property of Foursquare Labs, Inc.
Before I start with the worst aspects of Foursquare, I would like to note that most of these are problems of the application itself but more so the users of the application. I will also describe how the creators can actually fix these aspects, since providing just criticism is not really helpful to anyone.
By far the worst aspect of the application is the people who don't seem to understand that it is a personal application about exploring. They just want the points to compete with friends, so anything that is close enough to check into is what they check into daily just for quick points and mayorships. This bugs me, if you want to play a game about earning points but not moving much then start eating more and add some pounds, the scale will show your score. But if you want to play a game that's actually about going places and showing the world you are going places, the please play Foursquare.
Here's an example of when I've seen this happen. One of my friend's works in downtown Boulder, Colorado and on office-mate decided to put up a Foursquare location in the office for his Mom. Now, his Mom was set to be viewed in public because he listed her as a strip club or some other adult rated retail, and every day people would come into the office and check-in at his Mom. But no one could ever beat him with check-ins because he always had one more point at their work because he set it up and waited for them to figure it out. And then he lost mayorship of his Mom to a little girl. Why? Because this girl thought the fun of the app was to beat all your friends in points and checked in daily (including weekends) at his Mom from her house. I'm not joking and this is a true story, this kid's Mom is currently being ruled by a teenage girl. There's something wrong with that.
But catching something small like this is actually really hard, how do you weed out the users that actually play it correctly from the ones that are check-in addicts? Plain and simply, you can't. I mean, I've personally checked-in to a place that I had left about ten minutes prior before remembering that I could use the foursquare app, so saying you have to be so-and-so close is out because of forgetful people like me. Similarly, they don't want to ban having multiple check-ins quickly because of my sort of situation. What the creators can do is say the most check-ins you can get within a ten-minute time range is two or three, and then you have to wait ten minutes to check in again or else you get no points/mayorships until an hour has passed. This at least takes out the people that sit in their home, completely ten different places in a couple of minutes, and then starts their day.
Another sad downfall to the Foursquare system is that right now all check-ins have to be done at point locations. Point locations work well for things like stores, restaurants, malls, and parks, but they fail on things such as rivers, hiking trails, and beaches. Each of these will want check-ins too, but they can be miles long (easily) and so they won't exactly appear on the Foursquare tab when you go to check-in. As of right now, to get around this you need to type in the name of the place and just choose the closest location, but hopefully in the future they will map out these with lines or paths or something so that it recognizes the river or the hiking trail that you are on.
The Future of Foursquare
I don't see foursquare going anywhere any time soon. It is fun, addicting, and really cool. I can see it sort of dying down a bit, I can see it becoming more integrated with one of the large social networks, but I do not see the whole thing going away.
What I do see is the foursquare team working and expanding what the social app can do. For instance, I see them taking the idea of marking yourself on a map to the whole next level. Currently, you can mark yourself at a store/landmark or at a general location. I see the foursquare team combining larger, more general locations together and then giving them a map of the locations inside. Here's a few examples:
- You go to your local mall and check-in at the mall. After checking into the mall, Foursquare will download a map of the mall onto your smartphone and give you choices of the different stores. Then, each time you hit up a store you can check-in at the store.
- You go to the zoo and check-in at the front gate. Foursquare then downloads a map of the zoo and allows you to see all of the different animals inside, at which point you can say the one's you visited as you walk around.
- You decided to go skiing with a bunch of friends. You check-in at the resort and it loads a map of the slopes and chairlifts. You can then check all the of the slopes and chairlifts that you use that day.
I've given three different examples, though they all have a similar piece to them. Basically, taking a place that has a map already created by the owner, you can download the map created by the owner onto your phone and then use it to check-in to the individual sites at a place. Pretty cool idea, right?
So why would I see something like this happening? Three reason. First, there are some people that would check-in to every single store in a mall, which starts cluttering up the main activities menu. So all of the check-ins they do now appear as a single check-in that can be clicked for more details. Second, this would allow Foursquare users to download maps provided by the owners, which would then mirror the maps the owners have at their places. This means no trying to figure out where exactly you are on the ski slopes, because you have the same easy-to-read map that they hand out. And finally, and most importantly, Foursquare can evolve just a bit past having only mayors. Now, there can be a person who has the most check-ins at a general location (the mall, the resort, the zoo) and they get the title governor. They then lose the ability to be mayor at any individual place inside their governing location, but governor would be worth more per check-in than mayor. Finally, each store within their governing location gets a mayor. So in the end, the whole idea of mayor is escalated to the next level.
I also can see Foursquare expanding to include things such as auto-check-ins, where if you have a gps application that you like to use while walking/running, they could implement a Foursquare check-in system that uses the GPS coordinates to solve where you are. This of course would take a lot of fine tuning, but if it was made right, then it would make using Foursquare even better since I would only have to get my phone out of my pocket when I'm not using my GPS tracking apps for when I go on runs.
Last, and probably the thing I could see happening faster than the others, is that I see the Foursquare team working on making it so that you can have multiple accounts. Multiple accounts is nothing new nowadays, a lot of people like to have at least two accounts for their online activities. On the one account they add friends that they socialize with and joke around with, and on the other account they tend to have work-related friends. Well, you don't always want your business life and your social life to be together. For instance, if you take a sick day to go out and have fun with your family, you don't want to be posting on your Foursquare account that coworkers can see that you were at the ballpark or the swimming pool. Instead, you load up your second account and show only the friends you know are going to want to see your random quests. BUT, sometimes you want to post to both accounts, for instance when you go to the grocery store after work. It becomes clear pretty quickly why people want two different accounts.
Final Notes
As I've said before, I love Foursquare and I think everyone who has trustworthy friends to share the moments with should download it. It is not a stalking app, but more of a small, friendly competition app that focuses on making a history of where you have been. And with future implementations and updates, this appellation is getting better.
The Spotted Canvas uses the foursquare® application programming interface but is not endorsed or certified by Foursquare Labs, Inc. All of the foursquare® logos (including all badges) and trademarks displayed on this website are the property of Foursquare Labs, Inc.
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