This past Sunday, my Baltimore Ravens took on the Houston Texans in the AFC Divisional round in the National Football League. I was quickly reminded by fellow writer Nicole (@googleismybf), that she the Community Manager of @foursquareHOU. With a little smack talk during the week I decided to step it up and incorperate foursquare into a bet.
I asked Nicole to put a mayorship on the line. If you lose, you have to let someone else take over the venue as mayor. But that wasn’t the end of it. You had to wait 3 days before checking back in to try to regain the mayorship. That means this person now has 4 days over the previous mayor. Personally, I think that is quite a hill to climb back up.
In a hard fought battle, the Ravens won.
Nicole ended up conceding her work mayorship. I’d say that was a smart call on her end. She probably can earn back her mayor position before the end of the month. TopSpot Internet Marketing is now ruled by John V [at the time of this writing].
Thanks for the bet, Nicole. It was exciting to put something on the line and have the potential to lose it, and eventually earn it back.
Have you ever bet anything on foursquare? “I bet I can get 5 people to do my tip before they do your tip” What are other creative bets the can be used in foursquare?
With foursquare reaching double digits on City badges, we decided to list them out for easy reading. Don’t forget you can submit a request to get your city a badge too! Simply fill out this form and … wait.
Be sure to follow 4sqcities on foursquare.
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Hi guys! I’m Fernanda Silvestre (@nanndasilvestre), 30, brazilian, a social media planner and lover, and crazy about foursquare. I have to say it’s a pleasure to post here. It’s really an honor to be part of this team! Thanks a lot, Juice and Carlos, for the invitation! I do really appreciate it!
So to start posting here I’m gonna tell about our foursquare’s reality in Brazil.
Here, we are still a small foursquare community (for a huge country) but we’re growing fast.
I’m (as a super-user level-2) very happy to find lots of venues to fix,because it means people are using foursquare and enjoying it. They sometimes create strange venues (but it’s a matter for another post lol)!
Some of us have been using foursquare since the beginning, but most of people are now discovering what foursquare is and what is its purpose.
Because of this, I think this year promises a lot in Social Media area, mainly because of geolocation. And of course, foursquare contributes a lot for this. Many social media analysts and agencies are discovering this new potential tool for business and their clients and now we can find Specials almost everywhere!
Small business understood that foursquare could help them to find a way in social marketing and to have a better performance in sales!
We still need more social media professionals who understand more about all the possibilities that this social network can offer. They are on the way to give them better options to their clients and to create more creative Specials!
We are so happy with all the development of foursquare last year. We celebrate our SAMPA badge and all the efforts of foursquare team to make claim venues easier for us.
We heart foursquare!
Advances in technology allow nearly everyone to carry an endless source of information in the palm of your hand in the form of smartphones. Thus it is important for you to make use of this technology to create an interactive learning environment that will better capture the interests of your students. Luckily, whether you are teaching middle school, high school or even undergraduate and graduate programs, Foursquare make this easy to accomplish. With it’s easy to use interface and ability to track the locations of students nearly anywhere, Foursquare allows you teach lessons in history, geography and can even help manage your classroom.
Learning about History
Some colleges use Foursquare to help students find local historic information. For instance, the archaeology department at Michigan State University, uses the app to mark specific historical buildings and other markers on or around the campus. This approach to learning can easily be implemented into your classroom, allowing students to learn more about the history of the campus or for campus orientation. As a student checks in to various locations on campus, Foursquare provides historical pictures and other information about the student’s exact location. Thus to create an assignment, request students to gather one piece of information from a list of specific sites around campus. This will acclimate new students to the campus and help returning students learn more about their surroundings.
Geography
As Foursquare records your location to let your friends know where you are when you check in, it makes a good tool to teach students about geography. Split your students up into groups or send students off individually to explore a restaurant in town. Each student or group of students must check in at the restaurant, and then learn everything they can about the establishment so they can share with the class. The next day your students present their findings and can mark the restaurants on a map using Foursquare so everyone in the class can see where their classmates went, and where each place is in relation to their school, homes, etc. Not only will this project help students locate specific businesses, but it can also help with teamwork, research skills and public speaking.
Scavenger Hunts
To encourage your students to find new places, set up a scavenger hunt for your class that involves checking in at multiple locations around the area. Each student must check in at each location using Foursquare to track their progress and take a picture of the desired object to show in class. Encourage your students to complete the tasks as quickly as possible. You can use the Foursquare check-in times to determine who is the winner.
Attendance
Some teachers prefer to take attendance the old-fashioned way by calling each student’s name and marking them present or absent based on the response. However, Foursquare can be used in the classroom to help you track attendance in your class without going through the lengthy process of calling each student’s name and making a mark in your book. Requiring your students to check in to class each day will provide you with an easy way to see who is present and who isn’t. As Foursquare marks your present location, a student can’t alter the results to make it appear they are in class when they aren’t.
No matter how you use Foursquare in the classroom, it can serve as a useful tool to help you teach your students. Whether you implement its functionality into class projects to learn history or geography or use it to take attendance, the advances in social media technology can work to your advantage, especially since most students carry cell phones. Most students already use these social media tools, so using them in the classroom is a great way to encourage them to learn.
Sometimes deciding where to go for lunch can be the most difficult decision one faces all day. Day after day, picking a place for lunch becomes such a hassle you pass the decision from coworker to coworker like a hot potato. Mmm… did someone say potato?
No more schlepping it to that crappy lunch joint just because the guy in accounting has a crush on the waitress. Here are three different methods foursquare can pick your next meal. My foursquare lunch experiment: try a product that uses foursquare, go to the recommended venue no matter what and report back.
Method #1: via email
Where Next?! is a service that sends an email to you based upon your last check-in and suggests where to eat lunch.
Pros:
- You can customize the specific days and the time you’d like to receive the suggestions.
- The email contains five different venues.
- The recommendations are based on distance, popularity amongst friends, popularity on foursquare and venue check-in patterns (people who checked in at a place you frequent also frequent this place).
- Specials are highlighted, but I’m not sure if they are weighed in the recommendation.
- Likelihood of me using it is higher since it’s sent to my inbox and no further activity is required on my end.
Cons:
- When I first signed up for Where’s Next?! it took a while for the emails to actually start. It seems the kinks have been worked out now, because whenever I make changes to the settings, it’s responsive. Be patient, grasshopper.
- Just because a place is popular doesn’t mean it is good. And if a venue is too busy, you waste your precious hour waiting in line.
- It’ll recommend a place you’ve been to often (perhaps too often?). I guess Where Next?! is attempting to throw in at least one ‘safe’ recommendation in case the others are duds.
- Unclear if it takes into account my personal behavior – I don’t eat fast food, I prefer locally-owned businesses, I don’t like Thai food, etc.
- It often recommends a cupcake shop near my work,
which really shouldn’t be my lunch– wait, is this a con?
My experience: Monday I used Where’s Next?! and my polite email came in right on time. The very first option was a sandwich shop I had never been to, but 3 of my foursquare friends had. People who checked into restaurants I’ve checked into had also checked into this sandwich shop, and it was popular on foursquare in general. Although parking was abysmal, I found it a solid lunch choice and probably somewhere I would return.
Method #2: via third party app
Having an Android phone, my options were a bit limited. I would like to try Dine-O-Mat, but since that wasn’t possible, I settled for foodSquare. (image from foursquare)
Pros:
- Lists eateries around you via distance and check-ins.
- You can type in another location from which to search.
- You can shake your phone and get a random suggestion.
Cons:
- At the time, it was very slow and didn’t have my current location (it thought I was at home and not at work).
- It only rates places by distance and check-ins, no other qualities.
- It seems to be missing a lot of venues.
Foursquare.com got a makeover at the end of last year; now when you visit and allow foursquare to see your current location, you get suggestions based on the Explore engine. [Edit: Now with the new foursquare Explore (released today!), this is out of date. It looks like new website Explore is the ultimate in lunchtime recommendations. ~nb]
Pros:
- Suggestions are time sensitive
- Based on the Explore engine – so there are places that are popular, places your friends have been to and places like those you frequent
- Suggestions seem unique; perhaps it’s because I visit the website so often, but I discover places I never knew existed (unlike Where’s Next?!)
Cons:
- None, really. Maybe one – you get that little pop-up when you go on the site to do anything.
My experience: Wednesday at noonish I visited the foursquare.com homepage and awaited the first of three suggestions. Foursquare recommended a Mexican restaurant I hadn’t been to that I really wanted to try. When I got there and checked in – I leveled up on the Hot Tamale badge AND unlocked the Eater 38 badge! Huzzah! The tacos were excellent, too.
Conclusion: I will continue to rely on the Explore engine for recommendations until something better comes along [Edit: it’s arrived! that was fast, foursquare! ~nb]. I am still subscribed to my Where’s Next?! emails and even if I don’t open them every day, it’s always good to have some options when the inevitable question arises… “Where are we eating today?”
My question to you: Is there something you use for lunch recommendations?
Tigers, LSU is teaming up with Foursquare at the BCS Championship Game! First, follow the LSU Foursquare page. Then on game day, starting two hours before kickoff, check into the the game’s event entry at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. All new and current followers of the LSU page will automatically get the “Geaux Tigers” badge!
