The Heckenbergerization of Foursquare
Well, you knew it was coming. I've done my fair share of bitching about how I think some people I know on Foursquare are doing it wrong (*wink*). And before anyone freaks out, this blog post isn't about suggesting "rules" for Foursquare because no one but the platform (or the law) can mandate how you use social media. This post is about the Heckenbergerization of Foursquare: how I use Foursquare and how I'd love to see Foursquare used by more people.
Background
Foursquare is the 1-year old child born from mobile social networking platform Dodgeball, which my friends and I used religiously starting in 2004. Among my friends in NYC, Dodgeball was our way of life.
When you're young and in NYC, you're generally out every night (your apt is too small to spend much time in it), covering multiple neighborhoods and meeting up with multiple groups of people. At first, Dodgeball was just a great way to mass text friends as you traveled from bar to bar. Dodgeball sent an sms (if they choose to receive sms) to your friends when you checked in, telling them the name of venue & the address and phone number. Super convenient. Genius at the time. (Remember, no twitter & no iphones in 2004)
Soon, Dodgeball started featuring users with the most check-in's on its' website, and that became a status symbol among core users. Later, Dodgeball added a "crush" feature. You could check out the other users on the site, mark someone you thought was cute, and if you ended up in the same bar, you'd be notified of your crush. Until then, all you knew was that someone had a crush and let me tell you - it was compelling. You were dying to know who.
Whoa. Holy tangents. Stop.
Long story short, Google bought Dodgeball, Google dicked Dodgeball, creator Dennis Crowley walked from Google and partnered with Naveen, they built Foursquare, a geo-location based mobile social network inspired by Dodgeball.
Today
And here we are. The basic premise of Foursquare remains the same as Dodgeball - it's a simple mobile way to check-in and let your social circle know where they can meet up with you when you're out socially. On the functional side, it prevents cumbersome mass calls/texts to friends as you dine and/or bar hop. It's also a way to see where your friends are without calling around or texting, if you're looking for something to do.
Bells and Whistles
However, there are Mayor, badges and points systems for the obvious reasons: incentives for people to come back/increase frequency of use and create a B2B revenue model. Obviously, venues want more check-ins from users - that provides viral value (user's check-in and their friends see the venue/tips) and it identifies loyal customers (repeat customers can win Mayorships at the venue, which smart venues reward with a freebie or special).
Heckenbergerization
I check-in to Foursquare when I'm out socially. If I check in at a venue, it's cool for my friends to meet up with me. If I see a friend checked-in'd in on Foursquare, I may stop in and hang with them.
I don't check-in at work. Work is work. I'm busy there. I just don't have time to invite friends to stop by - unless we're hosting a social event. If you're checking in at work, consider this: Foursquare is google searchable. If your boss has google alerts set for the business, your Foursquare check-in's are like punching a clock. Just remembering to check-in at lunchtime? Mmmm. Might not look so good.
I don't check in at home. I'm rarely inviting people over to my place. Mi casa es no su casa. My apt is not a public venue. Sorry.
That's it. Not so complicated. Hope you find Foursquare as fun and functional as I do.
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Philly-based marketing professional. An insane music fan. Intolerable knowledge of pop culture. Admitted over-tweeter.
I'm Annie Heckenberger. I like music. I'm an overtweeter. I lead Social Media & PR at Red Tettemer in Philadelphia, PA.Learn more...
11 comments:
Nice post - disappointed to find out that your casa es no mi casa, but I'll deal with that -
Neat backstory on dodgeball - and a spot on discussion of the practical social use among friends - If you're a small business owner though, checking in at work may be like dropping a small biz card in the intraweb - And I would point out that there are a number of ways to use four square to interact with customers - but I might just do a post about that myself ;-)
And in closing, thank you for seeing that my word verification for posting this comment is "franap". I just hate when they use a nonsensical combination of letters instead of a real word :-)
Bill:
First, congratulations on leaving the best comment ever on my blog. I'm cackling at my desk.
Here's the bummer with small biz owners checking into their own businesses. If they do so, they dominate their own mayorship. Now imagine if the bartender at your local check-in's to his bar every shift. No one else would be able to earn the Mayorship, and worse, they'd start to get discouraged that they couldn't earn the Mayorship and either 1) stop checking in at your business, therefore, no longer promoting it to their friends and 2) stop coming. Hey, if they can be Mayor at the bar down the street and get a free beer for it, why not switch locals?
I use the bar example here, but it could happen to any small business that offers a reward to their Mayor's.
Hi Annie,
I know you're not trying to set up "rules" but I'd be interested to see what you think is the wrong way to use Foursquare.
You did mention checking in at work (could get one canned) and checking in at home (don't need to send out open invites and security/priviacy issues) but are there any others?
BTW, I think you were the absolute first person in my Twitter timeline using Foursquare. Had no idea what it was for months. :)
-Jesse
Annie:
Franap me twice and call me silly!
I agree with your point about the benefit of using the check-in for promos and community building rather than just dropping little maps of your business all over the intraweb(typically the home of LOL cats and snappy commentaries) but in a business that is not a retail business, it just helps you get found - you might call this the lowest form of interaction, but its preferable to none - now you bartender example is again spot on (especially if he or she is a sloppy bartender who spills a lot) I think that for that type of business, foursquare has huge potential for contests , mayoral races etc.
In the final analysis, people will be discovering more ways to use foursquare, and more ways they can mess up on foursquare as they engage more frequently there/ toramp (my newest verification word) up to speed takes some time.
;-)
Great post, Annie! It was great to read your post, I'm a serious Foursquare user (see this Boston Globe article), but unlike many folks I never check in to my home or office. For me, Foursquare is about going out, and my home and office are the opposite of that. On the flip side, some people have specific reasons for checking in at their home or office, and that's fine, I just personally am against it. The exception would be as you note - in retail/food industries, checking in at your own workplace would certainly be to the detriment of real customers. In fact I saw this happen once, the mayor was an employee, and so there was no more incentive to keep going! I think this is unusual though, most folks realize this Foursquare etiquette.
And speaking of employees, Foursquare's new dashboards for venues will have special roles for employees, so hopefully this whole issue will go away soon anyway.
What's interesting is, despite all the talk on Foursquare monetization, media partnering, etc, my best benefit from Foursquare has always been the social aspect - especially meeting others who frequent the same places I do. I've virtually met at least 10 people over Foursquare, and have met at least 4 or 5 of them in person at local spots, since using Foursquare - how cool is that? Many of them have similar interests (social media, work for large technology companies, etc), so the serendipity plays out very well.
I'm still trying to figure out how to be a travel writer using Foursquare. I think people want to see where I'm going down the shore. Or maybe not. Whenever I check in at some shore place, I usually get comments about what people think of the venue. I'll test it out this summer.
Jen: As a travel/writing authority of the shore, you should leave tips in Foursquare for things for people to do and see, while down there!
I think that's what I'm going to do. I'm going down tomorrow so we'll see how it goes!
Your post is dripping with assumptive seniority. The Dodgeball background IS interesting, but reeks of "They were my favorite band before they got big and sold-out..." Boohoo.
Some users may demonstrate bad form, but too many people chew with their mouth open and last time I checked email spam is still rampant.
If an employee can become mayor of their workplace, who's fault is that? Despite the usual passive TOS, the badge system is wide open to abuse, so what's to say the system isn't already completely gamed.
Maybe they will add features for logical distinctions (e.g., employee/patron), but then that introduces a disconnection that could take the "social" OUT of social media.
Social media is related to advertisement to real people, via twitter and facebook, we are announcing our product, service, article to those people who don't know about them or searching for some new and unique.
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