Hip to be square

After hearing Foursquare's co-founder [0] Dennis Crowley enthuse about his co-creation (on speed) in a podcast episode, i decided to join.

Since first hearing of Foursquare a year back, i've wondered about two things:

a) isn't this awfully bad for privacy, and

2) what's the point.

I'm still not a 100% convinced about the privacy bit (or lack thereof) but i think i've got a vague shade-of-grok about what the idea is. On a hi-fly note, Foursquare bridges places in the physical world with the 'net. On more concrete terms, it is a way for people to exchange tips about places. And on the silly side, it makes being somewhere a game. Not being much of a gamer, i appreciate the exchanging-of-tips bit most. It's kind of a like a less fleeting Twitter of places.

My initial use case was cafés and lunch spots, so i did my first check-in at Café Regatta and my second from the only lunch joint i could fit into, Yes for food. The former is everything the second one is not. But hey, a guy's gotta eat. Only i'll do so somewhere else next time (and i'll order something else than the Auraleike with fries next time there is nowhere else to go). Both places got my tips. Then i tap (past tense for "tip") the coffe shop Caffi, the candy outlet close to a customer and even the electronics megastore where i actually got some good service!

The nice thing about tips is that you can read tips that are relevant to "this vincinity". You don't have to be in a restaurant, museum or market to read about it; rather you can ask "what interesting tips are there to this 'hood". And you can put that on your to-do (or to-done) list. 

Now i just wished that mobile data were affordable when abroad, because this thing would be really nifty Somewhere Else. 

 

[0] if i ever am to co-create some 2.0 craze, i want to be co-flounder. In fact, i shall call it Flounder while thinking of what it might be. Or Floundr.