Well, today’s the big day – Foursquare Day, created by a social media groundswell that spread to more than 150 cities worldwide within a few short weeks. In fact, two of those cities are here in our own little home state of NH, in Manchester and Portsmouth. Pretty nifty! (The backstory is really worth the read.)
So what, you may ask, is Foursquare? If you’ve been seeing it pop up in news feed items on your Facebook wall, you know it’s a social gaming application that lets you “check in” at places like restaurants, coffee shops, hotels, and so forth. And you can get “badges” for certain actions. With ever more badges in development, and a bunch of them super-secret, there’s a powerful drive to participate.
There’s also a powerful desire to resist, from the set of folks who get driven crazy by other people’s Facebook gaming, who refer to PleaseRobMe.com to raise the specter of burglaries when you tell people you’re not at home, and who just don’t think “games” are relevant for business purposes.
We’ve been asked about it enough recently by hospitality industry professionals that we decided to look past the gaming aspect and see what was under the surface. Turns out, it really could be the next big thing – a full realization of what ere mobile marketing was supposed to become before it went down the email-subscription-ish, CAN-SPAM-style model.
So I dove into a self-imposed crash background course on Foursquare, and Lani and I created a four-part video series to kick-start your Foursquare learning curve. If you’re reading this on Facebook and can’t see the YouTube videos embedded into the post, just swing over to our Facebook Fan Page to see ‘em there – and hey, why not become a Fan while you’re at it, and share your thoughts on Foursquare in the comments. Thanks!
