Aug 31

Foursquare tells you when you’ll be mayor

By Josh Martin Check-in, Mobile, Social Media View Comments

If you use Foursquare, you probably know how mayorships work (the person that checks-in the most days than anyone else at a venue is crowned the mayor). However, it was always a mystery of how many check-ins were needed to dethrone the mayor. A few months ago, I blogged about an application, WhenWillIBeMayor.com, that told you how many more check-ins you needed to become mayor.

Foursquare recently launched a new feature that now tells you how many days you’re away from becoming the Mayor when you check-in to a venue. I noticed this new feature the other day when I checked-in to Schlotzsky’s Deli. I got the notice that I was only 3 days away from becoming the Mayor.

Several venues have special offers and rewards for mayors, so this new feature will be helpful for those users who are battling for mayorships at popular venues.

Even with the launch of Facebook Places, Foursquare continues to grow (they recently surpassed the 3 million user mark this week). I started using Facebook Places to check-in the day it launched, but after using it for a few days, I’ve been really disappointed. In comparison, Foursquare is much more entertaining and user friendly than Facebook Places.

What do you think of this new feature within Foursquare? Are you using Foursquare instead of Facebook Places?

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Aug 30

How to update your privacy for Facebook Places

By Josh Martin Check-in, Facebook, Social Media View Comments

It’s now been over a week since Facebook launched their location-based product, Places. If you’re looking for a good resource on Facebook Places, check out Tomer Tishgarten’s essential guide for marketers and developers on his blog.

Privacy seems to always be a hot topic with any new update from Facebook (big surprise). With Facebook Places, several of the settings are already enabled that you might not be aware of. Below are some common questions you might have about Facebook Places and steps you can take to update your privacy settings.

How can I control who can see the Places I’ve visited?

Similar to how you can control who can see your posts, photos, etc., you can customize who can see your check-ins. Go to the main Privacy Settings page and click the “Customize settings” link. Select the drop-down menu next to “Places I check in.” From there, you can decide who gets to see your check-ins, whether it be everyone, or just friends, or a customized list of friends.

How can I control whether I appear in the “People Here Now” list?

At each Place page within Facebook, there is a “People Here Now” section that lists those Facebook users who have checked in. So, if you checked in to a Starbucks, you could see a list of people who have are there now and they wouldn’t necessarily be your Facebook friends. You can enable or disable your inclusion in “People Here Now” after you check in at a Place by navigating to the main Privacy Settings page and clicking the “Customize settings” link at the bottom of the page. From there, just uncheck the “Enable” box next to “Include me in People Here Now after I check in” if you do not want to be included in this list.

What if I don’t want my friends checking me in to Places?

Only your confirmed friends on Facebook are allowed to tag you at a Place, but you can adjust this setting. To do this, just go to the main Privacy Settings page and clicking the “Customize settings” link at the bottom of the page. Then, simply choose “Disabled” in the dropdown box next to “Friends can check me into Places.”

How concerned are you with your privacy when using Facebook Places? Do you plan on (or have you) disabling most of these features?

If you have further questions about Facebook Places, check out their Places FAQ page.

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Aug 19

Check-in on Facebook with Places

By Josh Martin Check-in, Facebook, Social Media View Comments

Facebook has finally launched their long-awaited location-based product, called Places. With this new product, you will now have the option to share your location by “checking in” to that place and letting friends know where you are. You can also see if any of your friends have checked in nearby.

To start using Places, you can use it by downloading the most recent version of the Facebook application for iPhone. Non iPhone users can access Places from touch.facebook.com if your mobile browser supports HTML 5 and geolocation.

If you’ve used other location-based services, such as Foursquare and Gowalla, then you’ll have no problem using Places. Checking-in works the same way. All you need to do is tap the “Check In” button on the iPhone app and you’ll see a list of places near your current location. From there, you can choose the place that matches where you are or add it if it’s not listed. After checking in, your check-in will create a story in your friends’ News Feeds and show up in the Recent Activity section on the page for that particular place.

Just like you can tag your friends in photos and status updates, you can also tag your friends who are with you at a location. What about privacy? Facebook appeared to be a little more prepared to tackle the privacy issues and provided more controls for users. You have the option of whether or not to share your location when you check in at a place. When you check in, you can tag friends who are with you but only if their settings allow it. When you are tagged, you are always notified (similar to how you’re notified on a photo tag or status update tag).

All check-in activity/history will reside on a new Facebook Place Page. Similar to Foursquare/Gowalla, each place or venue will have it’s own dedicated page. If you’re the owner of that business, there is a process that you can go through to claim your place (see screenshot below). If you claim the location as your business, it will become a Facebook Page or you can merge it with your existing Facebook Page.

Places will be rolled out gradually to users in the U.S. and will be made available to other countries and platforms in the future. What do you think of Facebook Places? Will you use it?

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Jul 14

Foursquare, the Fox Theatre, & some History

By Josh Martin Check-in, Social Media View Comments

Over the weekend, I was dragged … err I mean, I visited The Fabulous Fox Theatre with my wife to see The Phantom of the Opera (it was a great show by the way). Prior to the start of the show, I went through my ritual of checking-in via Foursquare and Gowalla (I’m down to only checking-in on 2 apps now, sorry to Whrrl, MyTown, & Brightkite). When I checked-in to The Fabulous Fox Theatre on Foursquare I received a notification from the History Channel with an interesting fact about the theatre (see below).

I had heard about a special campaign that the History Channel was running on Foursquare a few months ago, and I forgot that I had started to follow the History Channel on Foursquare until I received the above notification. The campaign on Foursquare was designed to promote a television event on the History Channel. When users check-in around different cities in the US, they can find historical facts about their location and unlock the limited edition History Channel badge.

For someone that enjoys learning new things, I thought this was a creative way for the History Channel to integrate into a mobile check-in app like Foursquare. It’s cool to see brands thinking outside of the box when it comes to social. The History Channel could’ve easily dismissed Foursquare as not a good fit, but found an interesting way to make it work.

Have you followed any brands on check-in apps like Foursquare and Gowalla?

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Jul 01

MyTown now offering Facebook Credits

By Josh Martin Check-in, Social Media View Comments

Booyah, the developer of location-based social game MyTown, announced on their blog yesterday that they are partnering with Facebook and will be giving away Facebook Credits to players when they check-in to real-world locations. Don’t know about MyTown? It’s actually the most popular location-based app with over 2 million users (that’s more users than both Foursquare and Gowalla). MyTown has even set some incredible records for app retention. For more background on MyTown, check out @jeffhilimire‘s blogs here and here.

This partnership is huge for both MyTown and Facebook. For MyTown, it gives users even more incentive to continue playing the game and checking-in. I’ll be honest, my check-in frequency has slowly started to decline, but having the chance to win Facebook Credits just might get me back into checking-in on MyTown (especially since I like to play a lot of Facebook games). Plus, MyTown is the 1st mobile app to offer this feature.

In terms of Facebook, they have been working hard to promote their virtual currency (they recently launched a new promotion with CrowdStar). This will mark Facebook Credits first entry into the mobile arena. Considering that a lot of Facebook games are spreading out to mobile platforms (you can now play FarmVille on your iPhone now), this is a big deal for Facebook Credits.

What do you think of this partnership? I’m really interested to see how Facebook Credits take off on Facebook and if it bleeds over to more mobile games / platforms.

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Jun 02

Foursquare mayorships just became more interesting

By Josh Martin Check-in, Social Media View Comments

If you’re a Foursquare user, one of the perks of checking-in is the chance to become the mayor. This has added a unique competition element to the check-in game. However, you never really knew how many check-ins you needed to unseat the current mayor. Well, say no more thanks to a new application on WhenWillIBeMayor.com, you can now see how many more check-ins you need to become mayor.

To get started using the application, all you have to do is create an account and authorize your Foursquare account. The application will then load all your check-ins and will tell you how many check-ins stand between you and the current mayor. And Darren Kennedy, consider this your warning, I’m coming for you! :)

Mashable posted on a blog reviewing this application and posed the question, Should this app be considered cheating? I don’t think it’s cheating, but I do think it could have a significant impact on check-ins. For example, there are some spots that will be impossible for me to become mayor due to the fact that the person that is mayor has over 100 check-ins at that location. However, for those locations that are running specials for mayors, this application could be very useful in determining what you need to do to become mayor.

What do you think? Would you want to know how many check-ins you need to unseat the mayor? Are mayorships overrated?

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Apr 30

Gowalla launches iPad app [PICS]

By Josh Martin Check-in, iPad View Comments

As the geolocation battle continues between Foursquare and Gowalla, it looks like Gowalla scored a big win with the launch of an iPad version of their app. The Gowalla iPad app hit the App Store yesterday, so I downloaded it this morning and gave it a test-run on the iPad.

I’ve always liked the look and feel of the Gowalla app on the iPhone, and it looks even better on the iPad. When you first start-up the app, the main page is a huge Google Map of your location and you can see where your friends are nearby. You can tap on their faces to see exactly where they are or where they last checked-in.

You can also check-in to a location from the app. What I really like about this app on the iPad, is you can see all the Gowalla spots on the Google Map. So, instead of scrolling through a list of spots, you can zoom in and out to find different locations on the Google Map.

You can also view your Passport (i.e., Profile)  to see your recent check-ins, stamps, pins, friends, and items. These pages look really good on the iPad.

I don’t know how often I will use the iPad version of Gowalla to check-in, just because when I’m at restaurants and other locations I have my iPhone with me and not the iPad. But, I could see myself using the iPad version to search for spots, view photos, and commenting on check-ins.

If you’ve got an iPad, check out the Gowalla app in the App Store – it’s free to download. Below is a video clip from CNNMoney.com where the Co Founder of Gowalla, Josh Williams, talks about the new Gowalla iPad app.

Let me know what you think of the Gowalla iPad app. Could you see yourself using this app on the iPad? Should Foursquare have an iPad app too?

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Apr 26

How will Foursquare win the check-in battle? SPECIALS

By Josh Martin Check-in, Social Media, sxsw View Comments

In case you’ve missed it, there is an all-out geolocation battle going on between Foursquare and Gowalla. Both mobile apps were represented well at this year’s South by Southwest (SXSW) conference. Personally, I thought both apps did a great job at SXSW, but if you’re looking for a winner from SXSW- check out this Mashable blog post, which has some very interesting results.

I’ve blogged about the reasons why I like Foursquare and have debated with others on whether or not apps like Foursquare and Gowalla will survive when the likes of Twitter and Facebook roll out their own check-in platforms. The competitive advantage that I think Foursquare has on other location-based apps – -> SPECIALS. Recently, I’ve noticed that my checking-in behavior has decreased, but what’s brought me back to using Foursquare are the promotions and specials.

Last week, on April 16, was the very first ‘Foursquare Day’ and was touted as the “first global social media holiday.” Foursquare Day was celebrated across the world in more than a 100 major cities. Here in Atlanta, we had our own website to keep track of all the specials that were going on throughout the day, Foursquare Atlanta. The Enguage DIG team decided to have a team outing and celebrate Foursquare Day by taking advantage of one of the lunch specials at Spice Market. We had the opportunity to interview the general manager at Spice Market Atlanta on Foursquare and the promotion:

Following Foursquare Day, Foursquare launched a do-it-yourself tool for businesses to claim their venue and start offering promotions and specials. Venue pages now include the message, “Are you the manger of this business?” and a link to begin the process of claiming the venue. From there, business owners can confirm ownership, create a special, and submit for verification. Foursquare business owners can even request to have official Foursquare window clings and stickers to advertise their specials.

What are your thoughts on the geolocation battle? Who will win? Foursquare? Gowalla? Facebook? Twitter? None of the above? Let me know what you think.

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Mar 29

Location-based marketing, is it the next big thing?

By Josh Martin Check-in, Social Media View Comments

If you’ve started using mobile check-in applications like Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite, Whrrl, MyTown, and the list goes on and on, you might have noticed a few locations are offering specials for users checking-in to their venue. (To see all of the specials currently being offered on Foursquare, check out 4squareoffers)

For example, when you check-in for the first time at Noon Midtown on Foursquare (small coffee shop in Midtown Atlanta), you can get a free medium coffee. If this special offer wouldn’t have showed up within Foursquare, I would have probably never found this place.

So far, we’ve really only seen local establishments take advantage of offering specials within these check-in apps. The real question is will we see some of the bigger brands offer specials or integrate their loyalty programs (like Tasti D-Lite) within these apps? If some of the big brands can do this right, I think it can significantly increase customer engagement and drive more traffic to locations.

What are your thoughts on location-based marketing? Will it be the next big thing?

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Mar 26

Foursquare gets Bing-ed

By Josh Martin Check-in, Social Media View Comments

Bing announced that it will be integrating data from Foursquare. So as you’re searching for restaurant locations near your hotel, you’ll be able to see tips/reviews from Foursquare users. In addition, this new Foursquare app in Bing Maps will allow you to see check-ins, badges, and mayorships.

I’ve been using Google Maps, which pulls in reviews from sites like Citysearch and Zagat, but as a heavy Foursquare user I might have to give Bing Maps a try.

What do you think of this integration? Do you like seeing social content integrated into your search results?

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