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Category Archives: Featured

How to ROCK on Foursquare Day

April 15, 2011

With less than 24 hours to go till Foursquare Day we wanted to share this post on how to ROCK on Saturday so you can have as much fun as possible on 4/16! Here’s how:

  1. Find and attend a local Foursquare Day event (and bring a friend new to foursquare!) or get some friends together and have your own party (here’s some ideas on what to do)!
  2. Go out and check in at a local business! Try foursquare’s new Explore function while you’re out! Many businesses are posting Foursquare Day specials, check in and let them know you appreciate it!
  3. Unlock the Foursquare Day foursquare badge (how to unlock it remains a mystery and figuring out how to unlock it is part of the fun of the day!)
  4. Share your checkins on Twitter and Facebook and tag them with #4sqday!
  5. Celebrate at 4:16pm in your local time! Blow a party horn, tweet Happy #4sqday! on Twitter, go wild!
  6. Watch all the Happy Foursquare Day videos from around the world (and post your own)
  7. Participate in the global Foursquare Day video chat (here’s how)
  8. Check out everyone’s tweets by watching the #4sqday Twitter stream
  9. Checkin on foursquare using untappd (if you’re over 21) for more Foursquare Day Fun!
  10. Post pictures (try using Instagram!) and videos, tag them with 4sqday, then upload your favorites to the 4sqday tumblr blog!

How are YOU rocking Foursquare Day? Let us know in the comments section below!

Posted by in Featured, Foursquare Day

6 comments

Untappd Announces 4sqday Badge and Map Page!

April 12, 2011

This time of year, just before 4sqday, there are always a huge number of super-exciting announcements. (For example, did you see what McDonald’s is doing for 4sqday?)  There are tons of things going on and more announcements that we have to make, so stay tuned!

However, I’m ESPECIALLY excited about this one… Or maybe it’s just the beer. No, I’m pretty sure it is because our partners at Untappd are super awesome in their unyielding quest to make an app that is both fun and functional for both users and developers.  In their blog post this morning, they’ve made some really cool announcements that I am pretty certain our fans will like!

First and foremost is the Untappd Badge:

Like they do for a lot of major holidays, the guys at Untappd have designed an Untappd badge that can only be unlocked on 4sqday. Check it out above. They did the unimaginable. They took our volcano and made it BETTER by pouring beer on it! I’m stunned by how cool this is!

From their blog, Untappd says, “In order to earn this badge, you must check-in with a location and share that location to your linked foursquare account from Untappd on Saturday, April 16th.” It is that easy. And just to be clear, this is how you unlock the Untappd badge, we still do not exactly know precisely how to unlock the foursquare badge itself for 4sqday.

Any normal startup that celebrates 4sqday would probably stop there, but not these guys. In addition to the badge, Untappd has dedicated an entire page to 4sqday. You can check it out right this very minute at
http://untappd.com/4sqday11.

It is amazing.  First, because foursquare has such awesome, easy to use API, the guys at Untappd were able to create a 4sqday map to show you where and what everyone is drinking (Similar to the SXSWi page they had). I tried it out this morning (below) and I’m happy to report that it works BEAUTIFULLY!

 

The map is created from all the beer check ins that share the location with foursquare, so if you you’ve been a bit lazy about sharing location  when checking in to your beers, get on it! We want to see that map lighting up! Especially when the Untappd 4sqday page also shows trends of beers, locations. and cities. To learn more about these features, check Untappd’s blog here.

We love it! Untappd is perfect for the beer-lover who likes to get out try different craft beers. It is a social beer diary and it improves all the time. But it is also for the casual beer drinker that just wants to add a little bit of interactive quality to their nights out. Check it out and check in to a beer with Untappd. We do!

 

Posted by in Featured, Uncategorized

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Plan your 4sqday on meetup.com, compete & get swag!

March 30, 2011

Yesterday during #4sqchat Twitter chat and on the About Foursquare podcast we announced the new Foursquare Day 2011 meetup.com event hosted on foursquare’s meetup.com platform that works with our map of meetups on the 4sqday.com homepage. Today we’re proud to announce the news that if you can get 50 people (or more) to sign up for your Foursquare Day meetup on the meetup.com site then foursquare is offering to send a free swag kit to you to help make your Foursquare Day event ROCK! Expect to see things like pins, stickers, name tags, banners, even a few t-shirts and maybe party hats in the kits! With 4/16 coming up quickly the window of opportunity to get a swag pack won’t remain open long, so get going! UPDATE: The deadline to get 50+ people and get a swag pack is Monday April 4th at 4:16 pm eastern time, so get moving! Here’s how:

To get going on planning your Foursquare Day using meetup simply go to the foursquare meetup site, find and click on your community in the list or use the search box to see if you need to create a new community listing. Then simply click Count Me In next to the Foursquare Day 2011 Worldwide Meetup Day listing on your community’s meetup.com page.

Next take a look at your community’s Foursquare Day 2011 meetup page to see if others have already started planning an event. Also please double check that your city isn’t already covered in our Foursquare Day local organizers database and if so please contact the organizers to get them to join meetup (show them this post!). Then start editing the details of the meetup and getting friends to join you to celebrate Foursquare Day! Get 50 people to join you and foursquare will send you that awesome swag pack we mentioned!

Organizers have full control over their local meetups and can update the event with information about their day, local business participation/specials, sponsors, etc. Everyone who is attending will get updated automatically with the new information you add. Please note: If you are an event organizer be sure to also register with us at Foursquare Day local so we can have your contact information on file.

But that’s not all- in addition to free swag, the new meetup site has created a friendly competition between Foursquare Day cities via their worldwide participation leaderboard. The prize for claiming the top spot is worldwide fame and bragging rights for the rest of the year until Foursquare Day 2012!

In addition to hosting and attending a meetup, here are some other great ways to celebrate Foursquare Day:

- Get local businesses involved by encouraging them to offer a foursquare special or deal on 4/16. Get started here.

- Get your town’s mayor to declare 4/16 as the official Foursquare Day – it’s actually easier than it sounds! Learn how others did it here.

- Post a “Happy Foursquare Day” video response to this video (simply record and upload a video to youtube, then go back to the video and click in the comments box and then select “or post a video response”. Then be sure to watch all the video responses from around the world on 4/16.

- Play the actual game of foursquare on 4/16 (yes, the one with the ball)! It’s simple, here’s how.

Good luck everyone and Happy Foursquare Day!

Posted by in Featured, Foursquare Day

21 comments

Foursquare Day Shoutouts from Around the World!

March 12, 2011

Missed the shoutout videos for the Foursquare Day kickoff party at SXSWi? Here they are!!

Posted by in Community, Featured

1 comment

A Tale of Two Foursquare Days

March 7, 2011

We are happy to feature a special guest post from Sandra Rand, a marketing consultant and foursquare enabler living in Portsmouth NH. It’s her story about Foursquare Day 2010 and her upcoming Foursquare Day 2011.

It seems Foursquare Day and I are just not meant to be.

I live in Portsmouth, NH, one of the top cities that participated in Foursquare Day 2010, and have been an active user of foursquare since I overtook the title of mayor at my favorite local brewery more than a year ago (that I have since lost). Enthusiasm for social media is high in Portsmouth, and the buzz about the Inaugural Foursquare Day quickly rippled throughout the state. The list of participating establishments was impressive, and I felt a day-long game plan was in order. Breakfast and 10% off at Caffe Kilim, a 10% off mid-morning cupcake at Old Stove Bakery, a $7.95 burger / beer combo for lunch at Gaslight, 25% off my dinner entrée at Common Man, not to mention the 4 swarms, a free wine tasting, and ordering 20% off my favorite local photographer’s prints.

And then it happened. Two days before April 16, 2010, my Blackberry gave me the white screen of death (mere hours after downloading Twitter’s beta app – coincidence?). After an unproductive trip to the Verizon store and a couple hours on the phone with tech support, I was given the news – my Blackberry was dead, and no factory reset could bring it back. My replacement phone was in the mail, not to be received until the following week. My date with Foursquare Day became a vicarious, though envious, celebration through friends.

This year, with my healthy Droid X in hand, I’m faced with yet another obstacle to fully partake in Portsmouth’s Foursquare Day. My cousin is getting married on April 16, and though I will have the technical capabilities to celebrate, my required presence at her nuptials two hours from Portsmouth limits my participation. I’ll happily give a shout out to the newlyweds as I check in to the chapel, but feel it is my duty as an enthusiastic foursquare user to inform the reception venue of the day’s significance before we all arrive. Perhaps a complimentary cocktail (assuming it isn’t open bar), discounted guestrooms, or extended pool hours for the kids could be part of the offering. Who knows, maybe after experiencing a perk like a free drink, my family will finally listen to me about the wonders and benefits of my favorite location-based service.

With all of that being said, I am determined to partake in at least one morning special in Portsmouth before having to shuffle off to New Hampshire’s lakes region. Who wants to meet up for breakfast?

Image: PK / JG 2010 badge, 4squarebadges.com

Posted by in Featured, Foursquare Day, Local Stories Tags: , ,

1 comment

How Foursquare Cincinnati did it

March 5, 2011

We are pleased to feature a special guest post from Rachel Giere, “the other half of @4sqCincy.” Foursquare Cincinnati was the first to get their city of Cincinnati Ohio to declare April 16th, 2011 as Foursquare Day! Read on below to learn how they did it, then let us know that you’re working on it and we’ll add you to the proclamation tracking page!

BONUS: Here’s the proclamation draft they sent to their mayor’s office. Rachel says everyone is free to use it as a sample or rough draft or just swap out the specifics and use it in your own effort! Thanks Rachel!

Ok, so you want to get Foursquare Day proclaimed in your neighborhood. Awesome! It was actually quite easy for Cincinnati, and I was surprised at how fast the whole procedure actually turned around!

Me and Chris (the other half of 4sqCincy) threw around the idea in a few DM’s on twitter. I took some bits and pieces from 4sqIndy’s letter to the mayor (as I thought it was pretty great and said what needed to be said quite well), and was trying to rework it to fit Cincinnati, without totally ripping them off. A few more messages back and forth trying to get the kinks out and Chris sent me a link. I highly suggest checking out your city’s government home page and seeing if they don’t have certain requirements for proclamations/contacts.

Fortunately, they offered a sample of a proclamation. I used it and inserted some facts, figures, ego boosting, into it, had Chris take an editing look and make sure I wasn’t completely off my rocker, and away it went. I received an email a few days later saying they had received it, and would let me know shortly. Lets just say that week or so was one of the longest I’ve had in awhile. But soon enough, I got an email from the mayors secretary saying the document was ready to be picked up and Bam! I’m driving to City Hall on my lunch break the next day.

At this point, I was still expecting to have a form letter telling me I was crazy, and things like this should be reserved for amazing heroics, or martyrdom, or a rocking pet, etc. But to my surprise the assistant there made a copy put the ribbon on it, slid it in an envelope tada!

Now it may have helped Cincinnati a little as our mayor is on Twitter, and the city is very active in social media already. This is one of those things though, that the worst they can do is say No. All it took was a little word working on my part and an email or two, and poof, hard part over! If anyone would like you are more than welcome to use the wording, or use it as an example. I highly suggest first off looking into what needs to be done for a proclamation in your city, and do that soon. I was told it would take 3-4 weeks, although it only took one. Then when the hard parts over, you can hopefully have much more leverage to reach out to those local businesses and venues and really get planning an awesome 4sq Day!

Posted by in Community, Featured, Foursquare Day Tags: ,

2 comments

Inked For Christchurch

March 3, 2011

Today we have a sobering guest post from (one of our Foursquare Day partners) 7Point1squared founder Rachel Dunlop. Sadly, her  plans to develop stimulate business in Christchurch, New Zealand have been halted by a second earthquake. Click here for a look at some of the damage.  See below for more info.

By all accounts Matti Mceachen was a great guy. Loved by all who met him, a great tattoo artist & musician. So when the facade of the tattoo studio he worked at collapsed on February 22nd* and killed him,  it left a huge hole, not just in the lives of his friends and loved ones, but in the wider tattoo community of New Zealand.

However their response to this tragedy is not only heartwarming but it is also giving outlet to many who wish to express their support & love for the city of Christchurch. Tattoo studios all over the country are getting together to raise funds to help Matti’s family and rebuild affected studios in Christchurch with a project they call “Inked for Christchurch.”

Proceeds from the takings of participating tattoo studios on Saturday March 5th will go towards helping to pay for Matti’s funeral as well as helping artists who’s studios are damaged so they can set themselves up elsewhere, i.e. bond for renting a new space or replacing equipment lost or damaged in the quake.

And they are using social media to help spread the word with a Facebook event, Twitter, as well as the website with all the details.

The good news for the squeamish or non-inked among us? You can donate without even submitting yourself to the pain! Simply pop any amount you feel you can contribute to this bank account: 38-9011-042-59880-00. You could even sponsor me to get the tattoo for you, as I would really like to take part but can’t afford to!

——–

*Matthew was, sadly, one of potentially hundreds of victims of the 6.3 magnitude earthquake that struck Christchurch that day in February, the death toll is still rising daily as rescue & recovery experts comb the rubble that once was our beautiful city.

While technically an aftershock of the much larger 7.1 magnitude quake which hit the region of Canterbury on September 4th, the smaller earthquake has had a devastating effect, flattening buildings and taking many lives, unlike its larger but non-lethal counterpart.

 

 

Posted by in Community, Featured, Partners

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Announcing the 2011 Foursquare Day Slogan

March 1, 2011

We had over 300 AWESOME (and silly) submissions for our slogan contest. We narrowed that down to the 9 best, catchiest, and most true to the spirit of Foursquare Day. Then we turned the decision making over to you by calling for a vote. It was a competitive vote and three slogans even vied the top spot with double digit percentage shares across over 689 votes cast. Now voting has ended and we have a winner! The 2011 Foursquare Day Slogan, submitted by Patrick Reijnders, is:

When the world is your venue!

We’re so proud of the new slogan that you all helped to pick and we want to thank everyone for submitting slogan ideas and for voting! We have more exciting things in store for you coming up over the next several weeks – 4/16 is just under a month and a half away, so get ready for Foursquare Day 2011: When the world is your venue!

In the meantime, did you know that now TWO cities are officially declaring 4/16 as Foursquare Day? And we’ve got seven other cities with Foursquare Day organizers working hard to get their city to declare 4/16 as Foursquare Day as well! If you’re working to get YOUR city to declare 4/16 as Foursquare Day let us know!

And if you are interested in getting more info or organizing local Foursquare Day events, contact us.

Lastly, here’s the voting results, thanks again for voting everyone!

Posted by in Featured, Foursquare Day

1 comment

Tracking Foursquare Day Proclamations

February 16, 2011

Here at Foursquare Day HQ we’re keeping track of all the efforts across the world to get towns and cities everywhere to proclaim April 16th as Foursquare Day. Foursquare Indy has begun a campaign to get their mayor to declare April 16th Foursquare Day and in Maryland, the mayor of Gaithersburg is planning to attend Montgomery County’s Foursquare Day! These cities will be joining the cities from last year such as Tampa, FL and Manchester, NH that proclaimed April 16th as Foursquare Day.

With all the buzz and activity surrounding the efforts to get towns and cities to Proclaim 4/16 as Foursquare Day we’ve created an online resource for keeping track of all the efforts as well as a way for you to keep us up to date on those efforts. Let us know about your efforts and we’ll rally behind you to help make them happen!

PS: Don’t forget, today is the last day to submit your Foursquare Day 2011 slogan idea!

[photo credit]

Posted by in Community, Featured, Foursquare Day Tags: ,

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