Why foursquare is awesome

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Have you heard about foursquare? For the uninitiated, it’s game where you earn points by visiting different points of interest in a city (nightclubs, restaurants, museums, etc.). Visit a place more often than everyone else and BOOM, you’re the Mayor. It’s simple, fun and extremely addictive (especially when you’re 1/2 OCD to begin with. I’ve been addicted to everything from Guitar Hero to Trader Joe’s Mint Chocolate Chip meringues. I actually called the company when I couldn’t find them in my local store only to learn that they’d been discontinued). I used to “check-in” at various places using my BB Curve, which was slow, inaccurate and led to a lot of double check-ins. Then I got my sweet, sweet Droid, with its pimpin’ GPS and compass, not to mention a dedicated app for foursquare.

There are a few great things foursquare is/can be:

• A way to see what my friends are up to  & where they are in case I want to go see them
• A living travel guide for a city (as people add “to do’s” at various locations)
• Inspiration to go explore everything that a city has to offer
• A travelogue

I’d been wondering how foursquare would monetize their site. To be honest, I was wondering how their monetization would ruin things for the rest of us – I’m always wary of too many ads or having to pay a subscription fee – sometimes irrational fears left over from MySpace. My friend Josh was looking at foursquare on his iPhone when he got a pop-up notification: check in at the Fatburger down the street and get a discount.

Well played, foursquare.

I actually don’t mind seeing offers for checking in at local businesses, provided they don’t dominate the screen. I’d even like the option to receive or NOT receive them.

Here’s another idea: Mayor Discounts!

I recently became the mayor of an awesome pizza place called Fresh Brothers. They congratulated me via twitter, and I asked if I would receive the mayor’s discount (I was joking – I do not feel any actual sense of entitlement from being a fake mayor). They replied that I could have a t-shirt and a free tweet-up tasting. Great move on their part. Here’s why:

- They actual gave some legitimacy to the game and are encouraging others to play and come to their shop.

-They’ve rewarded me for my repeat business and pimping their brand

-They’ve seized the opportunity to take integrate our online and offline relationships. Hosting a tweet-up is a no-brainer for any restaurant/bar.

I think some reward system for mayorship is going to be the next step for foursquare. What do you think?

Tags: Business, droid, foursquare, games, iphone, Social Media