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This is a guest post byPerri Blake Gorman aka @bethebutterflyPerri is an expat living in Hong Kong, connector of experts, Twitter passionista, social media trainer and consultant, blogger, environmentalist, lover of children & animals, & citizen of the world.

Right now Foursquare is in a major growth phase with new users joining at a rapid rate and the availability rolling out in cities around the world.

People are getting on board, becoming Mayors, unlocking badges and vying for top of the leaderboard.

Ok – first for all of you out there that still don’t know about Foursquare, it is ok.   It is very simple to understand and get going.

You can find this section on the help menu of Foursquare.com.  Each phone has a detailed page of how to download the application and how to adjust phone settings if necessary.

Considerations & Room For Improvement

Invitations:

How many of us really “know” the people we meet on Twitter? We are essentially out there making Foursquare friends with strangers as people sync their Twitter with their Foursquare.  I know: Only accept people you know, but this is realistically not what is happening because of the invitation system.  I can see this becoming an issue somewhere down the line.  “Woman Gets Stalked Via Foursquare” is not a difficult headline to foresee.  I have done a bit of browsing of profiles on Foursquare, and like the way people have opened up Facebook to strangers, by the sheer volume of friends you can imagine it is a result of just syncing with Twitter.

I think if you meet people and add them to Foursquare it is really useful  (if you can actually find them on the database).  You get all of their information all at once: Facebook, Twitter, email, or whatever information they have logged into the system. While I am not using that aspect to its full potential, Robert Scoble makes some really interesting points about how he is in his blog.

Check-in Reliability & Relevance

Sometimes people check-in after they leave, so Foursquare isn’t always a reliable way of finding your friends.  The status also stays there until they check-in again somewhere else. Tweeting or SMS is a far more reliable way to meet up.  People also have a habit of checking in at the post office, their office, the MTR, or their house.  It kind of kills the point.  The leaderboard and points system drive that kind of behavior.  I can only speak for Hong Kong, but do you really need to be the Mayor of the Ferry Terminal?

Quality of Venue Data

What you put in is what you get out.   It will be sometime before Foursquare is filled in to a high level with accurate information and good tips. Some people put in cool tips about happy hours and deals but I haven’t seen much of that in Hong Kong. Therefore, Foursquare may end up doing very well in some cities and fail in others.

Entering new venues has to be on the top of my “things I hate about Foursquare list”.  Personally I don’t even add new venues anymore because I can’t be bothered.  Forget about check-in, please wait while I enter the name, address, telephone number of this restaurant – “Be right with you guys!”? There are countless mistakes already, including duplicate entries with different capitalization, the wrong name, address, etc.  As a Super User I am allowed to correct these things.  Thank you.

If local users are responsible for entering data are we assuming that it is all going to be in English? What about translation? If I go to Sweden, are all the tips and venues going to be in Swedish? I have already seen venues popping up in Chinese in the Hong Kong database and these are most likely duplications of venues in English.  How will this effect future Mayorships and rewards?

I am curious to see what happens with negative tips.  We have already seen lawsuits based on Twitter comments.  What if you put a comment in Foursquare that you can’t stand a place, the service is terrible or that you saw the chef leave the bathroom without washing his hands? Is that grounds for a lawsuit? After all, it isn’t anonymous. Do you want to spend the money defending yourself in court? Probably best to keep the comments positive for your own protection.

Recording  Precise Whereabouts

Many of us who are active Twitter users are somewhat comfortable with sharing things about our life and whereabouts “out there” that others may still feel a bit uncomfortable with.  I have regretted tweeting my whereabouts many times however, and am still really unsure about the potential downside of doing so.  There is almost no privacy at all on the Foursquare website itself other than hiding your current feed from non-friends.  You can see a person’s friends and you can see where they hold Mayorships even if you are not that person’s friend.  Settings allows some control.

What are the implications of that information being out there and who is going to use it in the future?  Even if you check in OFF the grid, the data is still stored with Foursquare. In the US We have already seen Facebook status updates being accepted as a valid alibi in court cases as well as Facebook photos being used as the basis for criminal convictions.  Speaking to a lawyer friend of mine yesterday he said “The worst thing you can do is record your exact whereabouts on the Internet. It is a potential legal nightmare.”  That said, we do it anyway and hope for the best?

Cheaters

Ok – let’s say this whole thing takes off.  Let’s say venues get on board and Foursquare gets populated.  How is it policed? The minute you start giving things away for free there are going to be cheaters.  I was just at a restaurant the other day and another friend was “checking in” as he walked by.  Now I happen to be the mayor of said restaurant, but he just checks in and keeps going.  That clearly vies for my Mayorship unfairly.  No rewards? No problem? Rewards? Problem.  How “social” will that be when users and venues start having disputes because of cheating and who deserves what?

We ran an experiment on my rooftop last night.  My friends checked into various venues all over Hong Kong that showed up when they logged into Foursquare.  Some were miles away and they didn’t need to be there to check-in.  This is something that is going to have to be dealt with for Foursquare to work in my opinion.  If a new app like PhotoCheck.in (which still has issues finding actual venues) could integrate with Foursquare this could help eliminate or at least reduce cheating.

Upside & Potential:

I understand how people are enthusiastic about Foursquare and that to some it feels like “early Twitter”, but I see it as more of an add-on to Twitter than the “next Twitter”.

Reward Me!

If Foursquare can become a rockin’ reward system on large scale very quickly, then I think there is hope for it to really take off.    In order for that to happen it is going to require the perfect storm of users signing up, users pushing venues to sign-up (or vice-versa), venues putting together interesting rewards, and Foursquare being able to support this globally as a company.  The key words here are globally and quickly.

Just how it isn’t fun to Foursquare alone, it really won’t be much fun unless numerous venues sign up.  It also gets much more interesting for world travel and meeting up with friends in other cities if many cities are populated. Can Foursquare make this happen before interest wanes?

If You Are a Venue: How to Register With Foursquare

It is actually a very simple process to sign your venue up on Foursquare and it is free of charge.  This is where it becomes a no brainer.  It is free advertising.  Restaurants and bars spend a fortune on print and other kinds of advertising, why not promote to your “regulars” and local passersby with Foursquare.?  The pop-up tips are probably one of Foursquare’s coolest features and can lure potential clients to one venue from another near by.  To sign up you can go to http://foursquare.com/businesses/ and see some examples of what others are doing as well.

You are left to fill our a form on your own or contact Foursquare via email to help you with questions.  I have no idea what the turnaround time is on a reply though I am sure they are doing their best.

Last but Certainly Not Least: Check In for Charity

I think Foursquare has huge potential as a way to raise money for charity like Twitter and text messaging have recently.

Regardless of  whether I would use it socially or for rewards, I would certainly check-in for charity.

User Commentary

I wanted to gather some comments from users around the world for this post.  I was actually pretty shocked at how many people were NOT using it.  There were some of my Twitter friends I thought would definitely be on Foursquare that just weren’t.  Some didn’t even know what Foursquare was. I also sadly realize I have no women commentators but all the women I asked to comment either were not on Foursquare or did not come back to me.  Below are the comments of some global users I thought you would appreciate.

Neal Schaffer ~ Windmill Networking

User: 3 Months      Location: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Tokyo

Q: Are there rewards programs in your city?  There aren’t any that I know of.  They may be out there, but they haven’t reached out to me yet nor have I found them.

Q: How do you feel about Foursquare location tweets? They should be banned. I promised my Twitter followers I would never tweet a Foursquare location and they should call me on it if I ever do!

Q: What do you love about Foursquare? I love being able to keep up in REAL-TIME and LOCALLY with my network..and that Foursquare goes with me wherever I go around the world!

Q: Do you have any hangups with Foursquare or words for improvement?: iPhone Application is still buggy…A lot of times it won’t find the location even though it’s been registered (despite a refresh).  It often crashes when I select”People” at a Location after Checking In.

Q: Is Foursquare the next Twitter? It’s a location-based compliment, nothing more nothing less Foursquare is a compelling location-based application that allows you to physically keep track of where your friends are.  In some ways, it serves what Twitter was created to do.  As more people use Foursquare, it will be interesting to see whether or not it develops into a different entity like the Twitter platform has.

Jonathan Nfarrette ~ http://jonathannafarrete.com

User: 7 months              Location: Los Angeles & Travel

Q: Are there venues in your city using rewards programs & have you benefited from that? I have seen notifications for rewards sometimes when I check in, but I haven’t really payed much attention to them yet.

Q: How do you feel about Foursquare location tweets? I actually do not mind location tweets, I always enjoy seeing where others I am following checkin and also what other Twitter users they checkin with at the same location.

Q: What do you love about Foursquare? By far my favorite use for Foursquare is when I go to a party or conference and I can check to see if my other friends have already checked in. I don’t mind the badges and mayorships, but that is not why I use Foursquare.

Q: Do you have any hangups with Foursquare or words for improvement? No hangups really, quite excited to see additional features and benefits in the works.

Q: Is Foursquare the next Twitter? Foursquare is not the next Twitter, but it is a great addition to the growing number of ways that everyone can use and share information on Twitter. Foursquare will continue to add value within the hyper-local marketing space and draw greater attention to location based social gaming. I honestly think we have yet to see the full potential of how marketers can utilize the platform and how the Foursquare community can receive additional benefits of letting everyone know what places they are visiting.

Things we can expect from a marketers point of view:
Continuation of sponsored badges for events and venues as well as limited badges.
Partnerships with traditional media (Radio, TV, and Print) in order to extend promotions and marketing further. Ex: Announcer on radio talks about concert event on radio, first 100 people who checkin to the club get a limited badge, badge = reward of some sort.  Scavenger hunts, clues are given as pop ups when you checkin.
Charity checkins?

Nic Tinworth                 http://www.nictinworth.com

User: 3 Months            Location: Hong Kong

Q: Are there venues in your city using rewards programs & have you benefited from that? None of the chains or independent venues here have caught on to Foursquare hype yet, but hopefully this will change soon. All it will take is one venue to launch a successful rewards program for incumbent mayors and everyone will jump on the bandwagon. That’s the Hong Kong way!

Q: How do you feel about Foursquare location tweets? Perfect for Twitter – annoying for Facebook, but if you are one of those people that checks-in to anything every 100m that you walk, then please, just turn the bloody location tweets off.

Q: What do you love about Foursquare? I’m probably one of the few people using it here that really get a kick out of the tips features. I’ve discovered a few great new venues thanks to them. Of course it’s fun being the mayor of places too, but I’m over checking in to every single place I go to.

Q: Do you have any hangups with Foursquare or words for improvement? GPS check-ins (a la gowalla) would prevent a lot of the venue check-in ‘cheating’ that goes on. The iphone UI is also pretty basic and could do with some subtle enhancements and a bit of a UX overhaul.

Q: Is Foursquare the next Twitter? I don’t think so. It will certainly be one of the Geo-location companies, but the race is on to see who will regin supreme in the Foursquare vs Gowalla vs Loopt vs Yelp vs Brightkite vs MyTown battle.

Timothy Poisal Hair on the Side

User: 1 month              Location: Baltimore, DC, Annapolis

Q: Are there venues in your city using rewards programs & have you benefited from that? There are venues that offer rewards, but I haven’t been able to use them yet.  Wish there were more though!

Q: How do you feel about Foursquare location tweets? I love the location tweets, it’s more interactive, and it has created buzz about what you do in REAL life.  So yeah it’s really cool!

Q: Do you have any hangups with Foursquare or words for improvement? I wish there was more detail about badges, you are just kinda rewarded them, you don’t know what other ones there are.  Wish that when you logged into a place Foursquare would alert the business that people are using it there, that way they would get more businesses in on it!

Willis Wee               Penn Olson

User: 2 months     Location: Singapore

Q: Are there venues in your city using rewards programs?  Not in Singapore yet.

Q: How do you feel about Foursquare location tweets? Hmmm.. it’s pretty cool but has yet to be fully utilized

Q: Do you have any hangups with Foursquare or words for improvement? They are doing a pretty good job. What’s left is for users to adopt this new technology.

Q: Is Foursquare the next Twitter? Yes. If businesses start using it. (Willis’s blog post: Businesses Can Help Foursquare Thrive)

Faisal Qureshi        http://www.fqnow.com

User: 1 month           Location: Pakistan

Q: Are there venues in your city using rewards programs & have you benefited from that? None.  Foursquare just opened up for the global cities.

Q: What do you love about Foursquare?
Eventually… the fact that a visitor to a city could get a lot of insight about what’s available.  In my own comfort geography I can add a lot of information, but as soon as I’m out of my own zone, other people’s input would be of great value to me.

Q: Do you have any hangups with Foursquare or words for improvement?

The mobile interface (I’m usin iPhone) needs a lot of tweaking before any of s features could be of use.  However, the concept itself bears great potential.  An anonymous limited profile look up of people within a venue’s range would surely help.

The iPhone interface is kind of clumsy. Lacks a few things.  I don’t see how badges are of any use.  I have seen “go off the grid” in the help of FS, but can’t figure out how to do it on the mobile app.  I can’t find how to auto-tweet or auto-FB when I check-in to a venue.  I need to be able to check-out as well, or better yet, I should be auto-checked-out.

Q: Is Foursquare the next Twitter? I don’t want to have to bite my own words, but I don’t think so.  Not unless it starts getting integrated into existing twiter apps.  Twitter didn’t happen until all these apps came out for it.  Nor will foursquare.  Just my two cents.

Calvin Lee~   http://mayhemstudios.com/blog/
User 5 months        Location: Los Angeles

Q. How long have you been using FourSquare? I’ve been using FourSquare for about 4 or 5 months now. I like it, it’s fun and lets me see what my friend are up to.

Q. What city are you using it in? I’m using it in Los Angeles.

Q. Are there venues in your city using rewards programs & have you benefited from that? FourSquare is still pretty new. Businesses haven’t really caught onto the benefits of bringing in more customers with freebies or discounts on their goods or services yet. I’ve only seen one or two offered at ventues I’ve been to. It would be great if they really rewarded good customers with goodies. The offerings they have now are pretty weak.

Q. How do you feel about Foursquare location tweets? I’m OK with people knowing my location, it’s a great way to connect with friends (new/old). Helps others to check out ventures I’ve been to, they might like. I know many women feel uncomfortable tweeting their locations. They either don’t tweet it out or check-in when they are leaving the ventue.

Q. What do you love about Foursquare? I love the badges and mayorships I get on foursquare, it’s fun. It’s also cool to discover new restaurants and ventues my friends checked out.

Q. Do you have any hangups with Foursquare or words for improvement? It’s a hassle FourSquare doesn’t have a database of all the ventures. Many ventures I’ve been to isn’t listed. I would have to manually enter adresss and all information. I would like to see maybe a instant messenger to contact friends if they are close by the ventue.

Q. Is Foursquare the next Twitter? I don’t see it, unless they have built-in features and tools like on all the Twitter third party apps that are out now. They need more ventues/businesses to jump on the bandwagon. Every place should have some reward program.

Kaz Zamri

User: 2 months Location: Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur. In the near future i foresee using in Singapore, Bangkok & Jakarta

Q: Are there venues in your city using rewards programs & have you benefited from that? No. Not yet but looking forward to it.

Q: How do you feel about Foursquare location tweets? Adds a little flair and edge to Twitter. I have bumped into people because of their location tweets. However too much of it can be annoying/distracting. I only include Foursquare tweets on locations that I really like to share with others.

Q: Do you have any hangups with Foursquare or words for improvement? Hangups: Too open to abuse/cheats Improvement: photo tags would be awesome.

Q: Is Foursquare the next Twitter? No, but like I mentioned earlier the two definitely compliment each other.

Please share your experiences with us about Foursquare in the comments

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