Foursquare Needs to Up Their “Game”

Lately in the social media world there has been a lot of talk about the geolocation, and rightly so. For those of you unaware, geolocation uses the GPS in your phone to determine where you are. From there, and depending on the app, you can check-in to the place you are and tell your friends. This sphere is getting to be so popular that Facebook has even announced an entrance into the geolocation arena.

Currently there are quite a few players vying for supremacy with clear, current leader. Foursquare is leading the pack even though it was not the first entrant and this is attributed to the game aspect that has been included. In this game you earn badges for completing tasks or can become “Mayor” of your favorite spot by checking-in more than anyone else. The rest of the pack includes BrightKite, Loopt, Gowalla and Whrrl, among others.

While Foursquare does currently have the lead I recently found a new service with loads of potential, SCVNGR. Remember having scavenger hunts as a kid? This has the same premise. SCVNGR runs off of points, you get a point just for checking in and then the real game comes into play. This past week I checked-in at a local Mexican restaurant for a meeting. Upon checking in I was then given the tasks to gain more points; Social Check-in (check-in with friends), Take a picture, Fear Factor (where you take a picture of your food in such a way that it looks like it should be on Fear Factor) and Say Something (those are all I remember).

So what is so good about this new service? This makes the game all the more interactive and all your non-tech minded friends can help you complete the tasks. The creators have also been hard at work speaking with various companies to get a rewards program off the ground. If that does not start your creative wheels turning how about a partnership with the Minnesota Vikings? What does this new service have in store? Growth. I have been watching it for quite some time and only recently jumped in the game with the acquisition of a new phone.

This is currently the only thing slowing growth, availability. For those with an iPhone or Android device I recommend jumping in. The great thing is that you can create a trek and anyone with SMS capability can join in, just not for the check-in service.

My conclusion after playing around with SCVNGR for the last little bit is that Foursquare may need to update a few things to keep their spot on top. The potential for this relatively new entrant is immense and with geolocation on the rise, as well as GPS-enabled phones sales rising, SCVNGR is in a good spot to grow, quickly.

Maybe what they should focus on is making an app available to those without smartphones to get them enthralled with the service so when they finally do go to the smartphones they are already engaged in SCVNGR and will not want to try the other services. Could this be the key to dominance for geolocation to really take off? Only time will tell.

Be formulating new strategy to incorporate these services, I know I am.

Let me know what you think. Have you tried SCVNGR or any of the other apps mentioned and if so what is your take? Or is geolocation more of a fad?

Are You The Manager of Your Social Media Future?

So I ran across this today when I logged into my Foursquare account. Go ahead and look… I am talking about the highlighted area that asks if you are the manager of the business. What is that you ask? Well I had to check it out for myself.

After clicking on the hyperlink it takes you to a page that explains what the business manager gets in return for claiming the venue:

In order to give you the power to create specials for your venue, we need to confirm that you’re the person in charge of managing that venue.


In addition to being able to create specials for you location, Foursquare gives you access to its research:


By claiming your venue, you’ll also get exclusive access to the stats we collect for your venue — how many people check in on what days and times, and lots of other goodies.


What I like about this “new” option (I haven’t seen it before today) is that it is finally an option to track visits to your location. Foursquare will actually keep track of the visits for your specials. You are only allowed one active special at a time but can activate a new special at anytime.


Why is this significant you ask? Well this removes a barrier many small businesses have been facing to entering the Foursquare game. Before this it was a little more difficult to keep track of the specials and required more work on the part of the business owner. I applaud Foursquare’s decision to make it easier to control the specials and look forward to what this is going to do for small business and the mainstream adoption of Foursquare’s service. 


Gowalla has had a little buzz as of late (no social media pun intended) that would also be great as a blog post… maybe another post is in order?


What is your take on the new “fad” of geolocation apps? Will the fad fade or is this the next big thing? Do we even need geolocation? Let me know!