SS+K's Foursquare-powered Birthday

Today is the (the SS+K's 19th birthday (where I work), and coincidentally it's also Foursquare Day. Some background first: my co-workers and I happen to be somewhat obsessed with Foursquare. We have 18 different micro-locations in our office, and people are constantly battling for mayorship- so much so, that last year we created our own Mayorshup, a Risk-board of sorts for SS+K'ers to battle each other for supreme SS+K office mayor.

So a few weeks ago we had an idea for celebrating SS+K's 19th Birthday and Foursquare Day at once- we'd create the first ever Foursquare-powered birthday card. When someone checks in to any of our office Foursquare locations, they "sign" our card by adding their Foursquare profile picture to our emblem, and adding their username to our card. The card is of course viewable online on our site, and also is being displayed on a giant lcd screen in our cafe.

We've also opened an SS+K Foursquare Labs page to host the many Foursquare hacks + projects we've launched in the last year. This whole thing has been a pet project of mine, so I'm really excited for it to be live. Thanks to everyone (@alvvvvvin @brainpuppy @FirefallPro + more).

How Foursquare is Growing Up

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of development for two of my favorite social platforms, Twitter and Foursquare.  Both have launched or announced several features that I believe are a significant step up for the services. At their origins, and despite their expansive 3rd party developer community, both Twitter and Foursquare felt like singularly focused products that could own only a certain portion of my attention and effort.  As they continue to evolve, however, it is becoming clear how they each could continue to provide more value, generate more interest and connect people on a deeper level than before.  In this post I will cover Foursquare's recent developments, and in another I'll dive deeper into Twitter.

Foursquare
The biggest critique of Foursquare when I tried to convince friends to use it was that they had no interest in letting people know where they are and having any serendipitous meetings.  I could understand that, but always felt it was a shortsighted look at the value of location data.  Now foursquare is building on-top of its check-in platform in in a number of interesting ways:

• Activity tray
  While in itself not all that interesting, Foursquare's activity tray has paved the way for a deeper social experience within the app.  Now when a friend comments on a check-in, interacts with a tip you've left somewhere, or checks in to the same place as you Foursquare alerts you in a drop-down tray in the app.  In addition, Foursquare is starting to provide interesting notifications such as a "matchmaker" like functionality, where Foursquare alerts you that a friend has added a "to-do" at a location you've been meaning to try as well, and suggests you go together.

• In-line photos
  To generate more conversation Foursquare turned to the most popular aspect of any social network- photos.  You've been able to snap a picture at a check-in for a while, but now your friends photos show up in the main newsfeed along with the check-in info.  This makes the newsfeed view a lot more interesting to browse and incentivizes people to take more photos.

• Lists
  Though this is only a site feature for now, users and brands can create rich categorical lists of places they recommend.  Foursquare will even recommend list topics for you based on your check-in history, suggest places to add to those lists, and provide community pictures to go along with the list.  Friends can collaborate on lists together, too.  Lists are a great way to filter your check-ins into actual top recommendations for friends, put together itineraries, and more (pro tip: see my lists of Top NYC Pizza Places and Top NYC Coffee Spots and leave me suggestions).

• Partner recommendations
  Foursquare launched the Explore tab a few months ago to make place recommendations for you based on your check-in history.  Now the Explore tab includes nearby, relevant recommendations for you from partners such as Groupon, Living Social and more.  Leveraging Foursquare's interest graph to improve a 3rd party experience is a powerful opportunity.  This feature shows the potential value in recording 2,000 life check-ins over the last few years.

• Event check-ins
  Now when you check-in to a movie, concert or sports game you can actually go one level deeper and check-in to the actual piece of content, such as a film.  Foursquare has partnered with media properties for these libraries, and the integration includes filling the new micro-locations with reviews and stats to help people make decisions on their activities.  This puts Foursquare in direct competition with another one of my favorite apps, GetGlue.

All of these features combined have turned Foursquare from a singular experience into a robust social platform that users can spend time interacting with friends through, regardless of whether they can actually meet them in person.  In my own experience since these features I'm definitely seeing friends engage with Foursquare content much more- including adding more photos, commenting on more check-ins, and looking at lists.  I'm also finding that the Explore tab is becoming more interesting as it starts to recommend me places to go and corresponding deals that I can buy from 3rd party sites.   

In addition to being great for users, many of these features are excellent for brands.  Photos and lists in particular make brand offerings richer and more compelling, advancing the way brands can create value despite the incongruity of them not being a traditional Foursquare users.  As a marketer, I'm excited to think about new ways to use Foursquare to create interesting engagement programs.

So what do you think- has Foursquare's new features increased your use of the platform?  Have any of them in particular stood out?  What else are you looking for Foursquare to bring to the table?

SS+K Launches our Foursquare Mayorshup (Mayor Mashup) on Foursquare Day

Even since before I ever arrived at SS+K, there's always been a battle for "mayor" of the office on Foursquare.  But this year, with a few more obsessive Foursquare users joining the team, what was once was a playful game has become obsessive  competition.  Now it's not enough to be mayor of SS+K, we're competing for mayor of everything- the kitchen, the cafe, the conference rooms, and various other key office spots.  It almost feels like we have to get to work earlier just to walk around the office claiming all of our territory.

About a week ago some of us were talking about how the office Foursquare competition has started to feel a lot like a game of Risk, which people clearly controlling or conquering portions of the office map.  We needed a system to keep track of who controlled what, a leader board for our office.  So that weekend I put together a rough-and-tumble version of an SS+K Foursquare Mayor Mashup, relying heavily on the use of pre-existing social plug-ins.  Here's what it looked like:

The version I hacked together helped show who was controlling which office location, but it didn't really convey the feeling of civilization-conquering competition that is taking place.  So on Thursday afternoon a few of us talked about how we could build something a little more interesting in the spirit of upcoming Foursquare Day.  And in a hurried 24 hours, with the help of our friends at Firefall Pro, we pushed out version one of the official SS+K Mayorshup (say goodbye to "mayor mashup").

We're pretty excited about our SS+K Mayorshup.  For one, it helps convey just how much we love Foursquare.  But also, this is just the beginning.  We have a lot of cool ideas for what can be done on top of the Foursquare platform.  And while you can expect a much more polished and interactive version of our Mayorshup to come soon, we hope to be launching some even more exciting things beyond our own office game of global domination as well.  In the mean time, enjoy our Mayorshup and have a great Foursquare Day!

Three reasons why I'm so excited for Foursquare v.3 #4sq3

Last night Foursquare launched the latest version of their iPhone app, Foursquare v3.  This marks the third year in a row they're launching at SXSWi, the perfect stage for the Foursquare team to show off what they've been up to and why it's going to change everything.  This year's refresh is an awesome overhaul, and really proves how hard the Foursquare team is working to make the platform into something immersive and valuable.  Here are the top reasons why I'm so excited about the latest version of Foursquare application:

• Powerful new personalized recommendations
  Foursquare launched a new tab in the mobile app "Explore" that houses all kinds of recommendations for you.  You can view trending places, pick a category or search for a topic in particular.  What makes this more intriguing than just about any other recommendation engine I've seen though is that every recommendation comes with "reasons why" Foursquare is suggesting this place.  It could be because your close friends keep going there, because there are a lot of new tips there, because you go to a whole bunch of places like it, or more.  I immediately trust recommendations that are transparent, even when the reason given is "this place is totally different than you're usual" (which you might just see).

• More compelling loyalty and rewards opportunities
  Two big challenges with earlier versions of Foursquare were that deals were hard to find, and they usually only applied to the mayor.  Both of these have been fixed, and then some.  Now when you pull up nearby places you see an alert at the bottom of how many specials are close, and have the option to browse only those specials.  There are also 6 new types of specials that businesses can offer, such as deals for friends that check-in together, regular customers, 'swarm deals' and more.  This makes Foursquare even more capable as the backbone of business loyalty programs, and makes deals a lot more value to customers.

• More interesting data and gaming metrics
  Foursquare says the gaming mechanism is entirely rebuilt, with dozens of ways to earn points in ways that will encourage you to try and do more, such as points for returning to places you used to frequent, trying a new type of food or catching up with an old friend.  You also see updates to your game ranking ranking every time you take an action, and the game is now always based on the "latest 7 days."  I'm also really excited to see personal data being brought into the application.  On your profile tab is now a section that shows your most explored categories, which you and your friends can visit to see what you are most likely an expert on.

These new features in Foursquare, along with their earlier additions of photos and commenting on check-ins, complete Foursquare's transition from novelty game to powerful platform.  A lot of people have dropped off from using Foursquare after they tried it because they didn't see the value; this is Foursquare saying they heard you.  Give it another try, spend some time exploring the features, see more of what makes mobile / geo social networking so interesting, and let me know what you think.

Delicious, Foursquare, OneTrueFan and the Founders Dilemma

This week two very interrelated tech news stories broke.  The first: Yahoo may be closing Delicious; the second: Former MyBlogLog founder launched the public beta of his new product OneTrueFan.  Why are these related?  Delicious and MyBlogLog were two incredibly popular web 2.0 social products that were acquired by Yahoo! aggressively when their stock was rising.  Both were poorly assimilated, rarely updated and for the most part left to squander to the dismay of their loyal fanbases. Oh and despite it all I've used and enjoyed both of these services almost to the bitter end, so this Yahoo's failure is personal.

While the founders of MyBlogLog and Delicious did very well financially through their acquisitions I imagine they were incredibly pained seeing their vision go mainly unrealized and their dedicated users left unfulfilled.  Now years after web giants like Yahoo swallowed up hot startups we're seeing the founders try for success again with their ideas again.  OneTrueFan is in a way MyBlogLog 2.0 - the founder's attempt to create independently what  couldn't be done within Yahoo.  It's the same story as Foursquare, which was launched by Dennis Crowley years after Google acquired his first company Dodgeball and drove it into the ground.  Now Foursquare is one of the most popular mobile social networks around at the dismay of Google; will OneTrueFan achieve similar success?

I for one am happy to see founders go back and try to make a second run at their idea.  It shows passion and dedication, and proves they really cared about the product, not just the money.  It shows if you care about your product you need to think hard whether it can possibly achieve its potential when you have to play by someone else's rules.  Personally I hope like Dennis Crowley before him Delicious founder Josh Schachter tries for round two with his dream with a new version of social bookmarking; I would be much happier using his product than the one Yahoo! is embarrassingly choking to death.  I think there's a huge amount of potential to build upon Josh's original vision (and I know I'm not the only one).

In the mean time, I hope founders of great companies try to make it on their own, or at least look for better matches in their suiters.  Those of us who come to love and rely on your great work want to see what you're cable of doing with your great idea.

(But then, part of me wonders if it sometimes takes the disappointments early on for success to happen.  In other words, was Dodgeball too early for its time, was it destined to fail either way, and did the manor in which it failed drive Crowley to a new, better idea that he wouldn't have been capable of achieving otherwise?  Or maybe it takes the added flexibility and confidence of having some money under your belt, as this article suggests.)

Sorry, More on Foursquare: The Business & Life Tracking Opportunities

As if I wasn't a big enough evangelist already, Foursquare's announcement of a location dashboard for businesses is further proof to me of how disruptive the location check-in game will be.

The early iteration of the location dashboard that Foursquare revealed at SXSWi lets businesses view the data around the check-in activity at their own location. Right now this is limited mostly to who & how many people are checking in at what times of each day, but you can already see the seeds being planted for a much deeper platform. Foursquare mentioned they are looking at including weather data so stores can see how their foot traffic is impacted. What if Foursquare opens up the platform so any data layers of a propper format could be brought in, similar to how Google Calendar operates? Businesses might be interested in traffic patterns or holiday calendars. They might want to import purchase volume or coupon history. They will also benefit from tracking their various location based ad offerings.

And what about companies being able to use check-in's for their loyalty cards or personal visitation records through the Foursquare dashboard or API? It sounds like Tasti-Dlite is working on this, and I'd love to see Starbucks count my check-in towards a free coffee. It also makes sense for my gym not to have to swipe me in once I check in.

The location dashboard is great for businesses, but it's also exciting to consider the different opportunities that this hints at for the Foursquare users. Right now every time I look at my check-in history on Foursquare.com I think of Mint's metrics. We have access to limited data so far, but we could be able to dive into our entire historical trends in order to see how our choices of how we spend our time have evolved over the year. And just the way I use Mint to figure out my years expenditures for insurance, I want to use Foursquare to see my years gym visits for my health insurance.

In fact what I'd really love is somehow be able to mary the data between Mint and Foursquare. Usually one reflects the other, but if I ceck in at a restaurant and don't use a credit card then It would be very cool if foursquare could somehow tell Mint to leave a placeholder for a cash transaction. Though Mint and Foursquare seem far apart in some ways, the fact that they both help me to track and analyze my life patterns makes me think the data should be merged and leveraged together.

I could go on but the point is clear. On the surface Foursquare is a social network and a game, but the data layer below it is a powerful utility for us players and the business owners we are interfacing with. Foursquare's API is already getting used, but as it becomes more robust and people start truly start innovating on top of it's platform, I look forward to seeing the possibilities.

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Foursquare Will Be a Big Deal, Trust Me

I don't think I've hyped anything in a while, so here I go: That Foursquare thing I've been talking about? It's going to be big. And this isn't like Twitter, where I'm asking you to take my word for it. Foursquare is taking the best attributes of mobile, social networking, and gaming and rolling them into one, and it's making it all really easy at the same time. But the real reason it's going to be big? Using Foursquare is going to be loaded with incentives. Not only does it help you find your friends, but it also tells you what's great to eat at a new restaurant, what's cool nearby, and starting now offers discounts at places you could go to next (seeing the screens above when I checked in to Foursquare yesterday made it clear ot me that Foursquare is going to be a big deal). Foursquare takes social media and lays it out onto the physical world in a simple and valuable way.

Let's look at why Foursquare is so addictive and potentially incredibly valuable:

• Foursquare is basically status updates, but it tells your local social graph something useful - where you are and what you're doing that they could be doing too
• Foursquare i actually mostly worth while from your phone, which is much more accessible more often than your home computer
• Foursquare lets you add and review 1-line tips for locations such as what food to get or when to arrive so it isn't too busy, which while not as thorough as Yelp is much easier to contribute to and browse for suggestions
  
• Foursquare is now letting restaurants add deals for players, so when someone checks in to a nearby location they are served a "deal" that they could take advantage of if they visit another place after
  
• Foursquare is an oddly addictive game, showing you where you rank in points weekly, where points are generated from visiting places, adding places no one has been to, and completing challenges that unlock badges (like visiting 3 bars with photo booths in them)

Mobile social networking has been a buzzword for about 5 years, but nothing has picked up. It just didn't seem simple enough or valuable enough for people to want to use it. But gaming, reviews, and discounts are 3 things that people really enjoy, and with Foursquare making it really easy for everyone involved it's only a matter of time before it's huge.

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