I am a modern woman of the 21st century – I like to think of myself as a bit of a hip chick, I like JLS, I know who Alexa Chung is and every six month I dedicate 4 weeks of my life to pouring over the fashion week shows from New York, London, Paris & Milan. But for the life of me I cannot work out Foursquare - I am reliably informed that it is ‘THE’ new social network but despite reading bits and pieces about it I am still none the wiser is it a game? Is it a facebook style social media to connect with friends or is it a twitter approach of the more the merrier? So I thought this week I would make a concerted effort to find out what it is and if I need it.
What is Foursquare?
Basically it is a location based social network/game. It allows you to tell you friends where you are and in return you can see where your friends are and possibly meet for a cocktail!
How does it work?
The whole game is based around what is known as "checking-in". You check-in with foursquare from bars, restaurants, hotels, cafes, clubs and any other kind of nightspot, add a little message about where you are and what you're doing - all very brief.
You’re friends will then get a message to let them know where you are and the idea is that they can then join you if they fancy or just be pleased that you're not at home watching Eastenders on a Friday night.
From the other side of things, if you're on your own stuck at home and bored you can see where your mates are and pop along and join them at a bar. All pretty simple.
The other two things you can do are create a to-do-list of places you've always wanted to go and add to a Top 12 list of your recommendations for other people.
The Game?
So it is also a game - you get points for checking-in. The idea is that it encourages you to use it, which then gets the system up and running and propagates the idea.
Find a new place in your neighbourhood? +5 points. Making multiple stops in a night? +2 points. Dragging friends along with you? +1. And as you start checking-in to more interesting places with different people, you'll start unlocking badges - this is where the real addiction lies. There are badges for discovering new places and for travelling to faraway places, spending too much time singing karaoke or hitting the gym consistently.
Foursquare points aren't good for anything other than bragging rights with friends and on the online leader board on the site with the top users which can get very competitive. Also, if you check-in from the same place more regularly than anyone else you might find yourself crowned Mayor of that place! - An honour that your friends may try to wrestle from you grasp, that's part of the fun.
Can anyone use it?
Yes and no. The game is city specific so there are different networks for a number of different locations. If there doesn't happen to be one in your location then it's not going to be too much fun for you. You'll also need a mobile phone to check-in from or better still, there's an app for Android, iPhone and Blackberry.
So it is really clever and sounds like great fun for people in the late teens or early 20’s in Uni with tons of friends but for people 30+ with kids and spouses it is unlikely that this is a going to catch on. I know that if I want to see my friends I tend to have to make plans to do so I can’t just drop everything because one of my friends is in a bar I like – Plus I kind of enjoy watching Eastenders on a Friday night!