Foursquare et. al: Social Networking and Location

here's a thread for discussion social networking sites that are centered around "location," like Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite, and even Google Buzz and Twitter.

i'm not using any of these services--they seem like a privacy nightmare--but i've been seeing more and more articles about them. any ilxors using any of this stuff?

* discussion of

so that's it - no-one uses these around here?
I'd been mocking my friends using foursquare for being addcited to a hopelessly useless app but now it seems I've gotten equally hooked to gowalla. Still useless.

i can imagine 4square might be useful if you're out & about and want to let all your friends know where to find you, but the only person i know local to me using it just updates from starbucks every time she makes a coffee run. zzz.

I don't understand the 4square craze. I know of people who are obsessed with it, competing to get the Mayor Badge for various locations (mainly coffee shops and retail stores). Really lame. I'd like someone to explain to me why it's such an important element of social media.

I've been thinking about a comment made on TWiT that girls should be careful when using this

would never see myself using this irl tho

the last thing i want in my life is another useless social networking services that tells people i barely care about what i'm doing

I use foursquare all the time. I initially signed up to get some of the deals that venues offer, but quickly became addicted to becoming the mayor of things. Yes, it's stupid at times, but fun. I'm sure I'll get tired of it eventually.

the last thing i want in my life is another useless social networking services that tells people i barely care about what i'm doing

― ksh, Wednesday, April 21, 2010 6:00 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

what u mean "mayor"?

foursquare dude should be shot in the head if he actually got offered $125 mill for this thing & didn't immediately accept it

If you've been to a place more than anyone else in the last 2 months you are crowed mayor of that venue. Most of the time this means nothing, but you can get special deals at some bars and restaurants if you are the mayor.

i have a hard enough time 'using twitter' i cant see myself 'using 4square'

more importantly i spend about 80% of my time in my apartment and at work so im not sure what the use is "checking in" from "my bathroom" where i am "winning the masturbation badge"

dudes, maybe i just need to meet new people, but even reading News Feed theses days is really, really dire. i would rather skim through YouTube comments a lot of the time. if i wouldn't lose contact w/ a couple people, i would not be on Facebook

Facebook is great for keeping in casual contact with people you barely care about and thus wouldn't bother to keep in contact w/ otherwise through a medium that wasn't bloated, overrun by pointless advertising, and filled with lonely people jockeying for attention by "lifestreaming" 24/7

i only read "top news" on facebook now -- actual news feed is like having someone vomit in your eye sockets

4square seems retarded to me, but I guess it doesn't seem more retarded to me than twitter

btw, foursquare doesn't reveal your location to anyone not on your contact list, unless first name, last initial and a tiny photo are enough to identify you.

i just started using it a couple weeks ago. i keep imagining "oh, my good friend is at a bar a couple blocks away!" but this will probably never happen.

Whenever I see this thread,, I think, 'Aimee Semple McPherson started a social networking site?'

i don't use any of these location based things & have never given them any thought. the stuff about being mayor upthread is hilarious to me.

should be et al. btw

don't worry, i only took four years of Latin

not enough to remember et, being the full word for "the," doesn't need a period after it

first name, last initial, and photo are enough to identify anyone you are stalking + planning to murder afaik

FWIW, I don't really use the social aspect of 4sq. Just for the deals and mild competition of getting mayorships. None of my friends use it.

a
ae
ae
am
a
ae
arum
is
as
is

^ i remember something, at least

et means "and"

holy shit of course it does

anyway, if y'all need help w/ some Latin, i'm yr dude

i also took 4 years of latin ; )

hahahaha

no idea what's up w/ my brane tonight tbh. forgetting Latin doesn't even HAVE a word for "the"

anyway

us
i
o
um
o
i
orum
is
os
is

^ that might be right. \O_o/

used Cambridge Latin iirc. one of the slaves got wasted in one of the stories and thought a painting of a lion was a real lion. this was entertaining 2 me in 7th grade

i dunno we didn't do a textbook just learning vocabs and translating pliny ˘\(o_º)/˘

irl lols

at the end of the first Cambridge Latin book Mount Vesuvius blows up and destroys Pompeii, and some of the characters, including the previously mentioned drunk slave iirc, are killed. pretty traumatic way to learn a language in 7th/8th grade

anyway, needless to say, Grumio did not have Foursquare. feel free to return to the thread topic

no one "likes" lame HRO/chillwave jokes on FB :-(

well, like three people like HRO jokes but that's about it

Foursquare & Gowalla are gps gimmicks. Twitter I really like, and have written strategies about using it professionally in academia. Some day, someone will come up with an actually useful gps social media interface.

if latin conjugation is more interesting than the thread topic, u got a business plan problem

Twitter is great. People's foursquare updates clogging my twitter feed are going to make me start deleting them very soon.

http://www.legionofdairy.com/wp-images/posts/MayorMcCheese.jpg

How can Twitter be useful professionally in academia? The problem is that I can only express something tiny in Twitter, and if I'm actually talking shop on there it means I can only talk about tiny things (which is lame). Plus I don't want to give away my idea that freely: if it's worth posting about and thus having my name associated with, it's probably worth writing it up in more detail---but then I don't want to get scooped by someone else. I guess I could use it as an announcement board for talks I'm giving/visits I'm making/papers I've published, but that would mean I'd update my feed, uh, maybe 20 times a year at most. I guess I could use it for teaching announcements too? Maybe. Right now I use my Twitter account for posting "personal" (i.e. dumb) things like song lyrics, that I used to post on Facebook before I realized that none of my friends considered my bullshit valuable (the feeling was mutual of course).

Some day, someone will come up with an actually useful gps social media interface.

In all seriousness, what might this look like?

it would be like Foursquare except there's no checking it -- it would continually and automatically update your location on Google Maps and it would also provide all your followers, who don't need your permission to follow you because all your information would be totally public, with a live audio and video stream of whatever you're doing, with the source of the stream being cameras that said company would have installed everywhere across the world--covering literally every surface of our planet, including underwater (at any depth)

would also constantly update your followers with your vital signs, weight, and bank balance, in addition to displaying your social security and credit card numbers in a well-designed widget to be placed next to the Google Map & live audio/video feed

becoming the mayor of a place would also actually literally make you the mayor of that place. so instead of having a mayor per town or whatever, there's going to be a mayor for every conceivable location in the world

and by "location" or "place," i mean for every set of GPS coordinates conceivable

would also have galactic/Universal version on the roadmap for third quarter 2k30 iirc

"it would be like Foursquare except there's no checking in -- it would continually and automatically update your location on Google Maps"

google latitude already does this basically

does it? loooool

my job is suddenly all a-tizzy with the idea that 4 square is a great marketing tool. meaning that this trend is officially over.

RIP

heaven needed some more bullshit

Twitter is great. People's foursquare updates clogging my twitter feed are going to make me start deleting them very soon.

― Johnny Fever, Thursday, April 22, 2010 3:00 AM (15 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

waiting anxiously for the service thatll be clogging up yr 4square feed next year

btw everyone thought facebook was gonna unveil their much anticipated geo feature at their developer conference but then they didnt whaa whaaa

that'd be cool if you automatically had all of your services repost whatever you post on the other services. so, Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, your blog, and whatever other services you're on would all be posting content native to that medium in addition to content native to the other mediums and reposted content from the other mediums that they grabbed from other OTHER mediums

tell me more abt these 'OTHER mediums'

it's a mystery.gif

This is useful:

Before I explain more about what I mean when I say Facebook wants to own your digital fingerprints, there are a few other reactions I want to get in here. The first is with a couple of guys from the National Hockey League. Listen to how excited they are about the new features they turned on yesterday on NHL.com. You can “like” every player there. Some players already have hundreds of likes in just the first few hours.

damn technology is cyclical after all

“Unbelieveable.”

“Blown away.”

“Zuck has balls.” or “Facebook has balls.”

“Big moves.”

Tomorrow during the Gillmor Gang I’ll try to talk about the identity fingerprints that Facebook now has under its control. It is a scary world, but one that has huge benefits to all of us.

how are we going to monetize ILX

geo tagged meme generation engine, 4chan is toast yall

sounds like a scary world, but one that has huge benefits to all of us

geololcation

why aren't my Tweets autoposting to ilx :-(

tech journalists, plz stop writing challopsy link bait headlines like: Everybody Is Wrong About Facebook's Foursquare-Killer -- http://www.businessinsider.com/why-facebooks-foursquare-killer-wont-kill-foursquare-2010-5

thanks

I'm warming up more and more to 4sq, I must admit. I initially found Gowalla more fun and it kinda seemed like a cute underdog to the corporate monolith of 4sq (lol 2010), yet the nearby tips feature on the latter is actually pretty sweet.

skimming this article atm -- smh

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/19/fashion/19foursquare.html

To maintain his portfolio, Mr. Ilagan used to make frequent visits to his parents’ house in Elkins Park, Pa., about 10 miles outside Philadelphia, not necessarily to see mom and dad, but to hold on to the four mayorships he had there, including a Wachovia bank branch. “I’ll go back if I notice I’m losing,” he added.

For two months, the couple were in a tug-of-war for mayorship over Ms. Harcharek’s two-bedroom town house, which she shares with her cousin. Eventually, Mr. Ilagan relented and let his girlfriend be the mayor of her own home. But he wants it to be known that he hasn’t given up completely.

“If I could catch up and steal the mayorship,” he warned, “I’ll do it without question.”

He didn’t seem to be joking.

Someone even turned Mr. Barnett’s private office into a Foursquare venue and took control of it.

“It was weird,” he said. “It was as if my office was awarded a personality and it became alive.”

I don't understand these people at all, like how desperate to cling on to something do you have to be to be insanely excited about being the "mayor" of a bridge?

hahaha otm

seriously this just popped up in my feed

I just ousted @xxxxxxx as the mayor of Children & Adult Psychological Services on @foursquare! 4sq.com/xxxx

I use foursquare all the time. I initially signed up to get some of the deals that venues offer, but quickly became addicted to becoming the mayor of things. Yes, it's stupid at times, but fun. I'm sure I'll get tired of it eventually

This is exactly how I feel about Foursquare right now. Ten mayorships earned me a SuperMayor badge, woohoo.

I got tired of it eventually! It just became a chore to check-in all the time. The only sort of thing like this I do now is untappd, which logs beers I drink and where I drink them.

Another $41MM to this company.

This allows us to get closer to being able to prove that there’s a real business here

Is anyone really using Foursquare anymore?

I know many people that still use it. I think it is still seen as something valuable with businesses and advertisers, since it links directly with going to places and spending money.

i use it passively - never bother checking in but once in a while I check out options in a new neighborhood ("explore" I s'pose)

I'm addicted to it. I check in pretty much everywhere I go, leave tips for others and (like the previous poster) use it to find nearby places in unfamiliar areas.

tbh I love checking in in very random isolated places (eg highway rest areas) and see small messages in a bottle littered in the comments