Foursquare Secrets Revealed: Find Out When Will I Be Mayor.

The mystery is gone. http://whenwillibemayor.com/home

 Is there a site for how I get all the badges? 

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The inside info on how to get the best badges on Foursquare from an inside source, the co founder.

Naveen Selvadurai, co-founder of Fourquare, talks about how the app has changed people's behavior, from karaoke crawls to losing weight. And in the meantime, he gives tips on how to get the coolest badges. I always wanted to know how to get the Andy Warhol badge!

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Finally a great use of Live Maps: Where the Food Trucks are in LA

http://la.truxmap.com/

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How E-tailers Should Leverage the Foursquare Model

The early adopters in my network have all heard about Foursquare, and Gowalla and My Town. Launched in March 2009, it was called the "breakout mobile app at SXSW by Mashable (http://mashable.com/2009/03/16/foursquare/), the adoption rate has been astounding, first by users and now by brands such as Bravo and Zagat.

And I'm sure that trend will continue, notwithstanding the fear of advertising that your home is empty and can easily be robbed (http://pleaserobme.com/). More and more people will soon be getting sucked into what Peter Shankman states in his post, "2010--The Year of FourSquare?", the "black tar" that is Foursquare.

However, I have noticed e-tailers are lagging behind, and I have a great solution for them. Just recently I added a few books to my wish list at Amazon, and I thought it would be great to share that on Twitter and Facebook. To do so, I had to open a new tab, copy and paste the link to the book and type the text that I just added such and such to my wish list.

It's really a no brainer that there should be a share button on that Amazon page, and similar pages from all e-tailers. Why not share that you added a movie to your netflix queue. Or that you just purchased new boots from Zappos. Of course in the vein of http://www.pleaserobme.com, I would not recommend tweeting you just purchased a 50' LCD television or brand new Rolls Royce.

Continuing with that model, power users---not just appointed bloggers-- would get badges and discounts, and tell their friends/followers about great deals 

Leveraging brand advocates to reinforce their loyalty and spread the news is what social media is all about. Seems like a no brainer to me, and it's not necessary to forge an alliance with Foursquare, as they already have large customer bases.   Just saying...

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Will foursquare survive? I'm not sure I want it to.

Robert Scoble points out all the great things about these geo location tools (http://bit.ly/bO6Pgz,) which is why I started using them a few months. And this week, one of my favorite people, @zenaweist, posted through foursquare that she was staying just a few blocks from me in NYC. She lives in Kansas, I in LA, and we would have not had the chance to meet without foursqure. That's where it's brilliant. But it's becoming less rewarding as more and more people use these tools. I am overwhelmed with folks checking in, lists of places are not alphabetized, places are duplicated due to misspellings. Currently, the negatives are overtaking the positives. Once they work out these annoyances, these will be very vaulable services-- both to users and advertisers. And whether it's foursquare or gowalla or facebook, this type of activity will only become more valuable. So please, figure out how to make it work well, and soon.
Thanks

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My Town, the foursquare killer? I'm beginning to hate them both.

With over 500,000 users, and 6 check ins per second, as opposed to foursquare's 1 check in per second, this come from behind geo location app may over take foursquare. After playing with it for a few days, it's basically Farmville for the phone, a most odious idea. At this point, with my inbox stuffed with emails from Twitter, Facebook and now foursquare and Gowalla, the last thing I need is another tool telling me where someone is. Read more here; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/14/AR2010011403377.html

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This made my day. Thanks @Armano. Check into the Kaiser's Toilet in Munich via foursquare. Celebrate international toilet day.

The Kaiser's Toilet from Marcus Brown on Vimeo.

http://thekaiserstoilet.blogspot.com/2010/01/how-to-check-into-kaisers-toilet.html

Heather
whitelaird@yahoo.com
twitter.com/howlvenice
http://howlvenice.com/

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Taking Foursquare and Gowalla to the next level. Can you say Gowalla Dollars?

 

Yesterday, I read an interesting post by Gustav Söderström (@GustavS) on why Foursquare and Gowalla are kicking Google's butt. (Read the full post here http://bit.ly/7yD21j).

And as a more than occasional user of both services--probably to the consternation of some of my friends, I can verify that that he made a number of excellent points: we do the work of creating places (brilliant), we take the action to check in (it's not automatic) so we are clear about what we're doing, the GPS on our phones is very accurate (for the most part) and getting better.

But I think he missed a very vital point about these services which will help them achieve the tipping point of widespread adoption very soon: The Gaming Element.

Here is what I posted to his blog:
I agree that these services will take off in 2010.

They align perfectly with the social media model of sharing..the new form of ambient intimacy.

But I think the "gaming" element is of major importance to the adoption rate and has been instrumental in helping these tools reach their adoption tipping point.

People are proud that they have earned a certain status, whether it be a founder on Gowalla or Superstar on FourSquare. I constantly see twitter posts about attaining these levels.

Personally, I feel neither tool has begun to leverage the potential there, though I did see Foursquare offer me a discount at a nearby restaurant when I checked into Emporio in Nolita last week--very smart.

I'm thinking special offers, discounts, even Gowalla Dollars! It has a nice ring to it. It's got to be more than silly bags of swag, or badges. I'm sure restaurants, supermarkets, auto rental places..you name it..would be ripe for offering goodies to frequent visitors. Basically, the model would be Gowalla Honors or Foursquare Members Points.

I bet you'll see that very soon.  Too bad I don't work there; I'm sure the stock options will be very valuable shortly!

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I have a sneaking suspicion I'll be the first person to check in on #Foursquare from Geoffreys in #Malibu

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Posted from Santa Monica, CA

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Will Facebook dominate geo-location and kill Foursquare? Why not?

Great article which continues on the theme of my earlier post of Facebook's (http://bit.ly/4AlWM5) positioning to dominate the social web. It's just a question of if they can do it fast enough. http://bit.ly/80l7Ja

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