I have to admit that I really enjoy using the industry-leading geolocation social service, Foursquare. It gives me a lot of options that I really think adds value to the user experience. Furthermore, it provides opportunities to businesses to better engage their customer base and potentially reach new customers along the way. While all this is great, I must say that I feel that the experience is lacking a little bit. Sure, Foursquare is still a relatively new startup tech company and will surely add new features as it builds and grows, but I am hoping that it soon adds the following three features:

Improved Notification

I really like knowing that my friends have arrived or are nearby, and it appears that this feature is not really available at the present time. Since smartphones are able to check email, a simple email notification would suffice. I am just surprised that the only notification that I tend to get is the one that informs me of a new friend request, a new friend accepting my request, or that someone has unfortunately ousted me from a specific venue. I feel that Foursquare needs to give the user more options!

Who’s in Second Place?

It would be nice to know if you are, say, in second place or if someone is rapidly gaining on you. Now, I know this might not be a required feature, and many users might find it to be overkill, but it would come in handy for me and many of the loyal Foursquare users that I know. Maybe, we should give them a title as well – surely, there is a position that would fit the mayoral theme. If the company wants to push the game aspect of everything more, it can send a notification to the mayor that someone is closing in on ousting him or her or send a notification to the second place person to let them know that they are closing in on the takeover. Competition, friendly or not, could certainly drive more visits to the various popular venues and take Foursquare participation to a new level. The possibilities are certainly there!

Direct Shouts

Sometimes, I don’t want to shout too loudly that the entire world can hear me, so can we find a way to simply whisper to one or two people? Maybe, it would be great to be able to somehow make lists similar to Twitter yet have the option to message or update people via shouts to a specific group of people or those on a specific friend list like you can on Facebook! Look, I just like to stay organized. With the list functionality, I could be more organized. In the future, you could even decide to take listing and organizing to the next step by limiting which friends are seeing a specific checkin.

In short, Geolocation technology is changing how we live and interact with each other using technology, and the future looks bright! As with every newer technology, there will always be glitches and challenges, especially at the beginning of the process. Also, there will be great new opportunities to improve those technology services as time progresses, and now is that time! I am anxious for these three missing features; what geolocation features are you looking forward to?

As a superuser on the newly-popular location-focused social media Foursquare, I am finding myself running into new questions of protocol. Here are three that I find myself struggling with the most thus far:

• What do you do when you go to several businesses located at the same address? I find myself curious how to check-in when I pump gas at a local Shell gas station and then pick up some food for the family at the McDonalds inside. To me, they are two different businesses; I mean – they both have unique phone numbers. As such, I should check-in to both individually, right? What about if you are walking inside the mall on a Sunday and go store to store?

• When should I check-in? For the purpose of mere convenience and professionalize, I tend to check-in from my vehicle upon arrival and before entering the location. So, there are times when I arrived at the business too early, thinking that they were opened (only to find out after checking in that the business doesn’t open for another hour or two). I know this might not seem like a big deal, but I certainly do not want others to view me as a Foursquare spammer of sorts, looking simply to increase my check-in count, etc.

• Twitter Profiles? Do they want them or not? Foursquare allows you to enter them on the regular website, but they do not allow you to add the venue’s Twitter account using the mobile site. Of course, most people just want to hurry and add the missing venue and get going on their journey, but why not offer it as an option like they do on the regular site?

So, I am confident that 2010 will big year for Foursquare! Hence, I am sure that these questions will probably answer themselves soon, but I am hoping to find resolution to these fun-spirited Foursquare cultural curiosities.