So, you recently realized the great powers and opportunities that foursquare possesses; that’s great! You’ve taken the time to claim your venue(s) and start listening to, engaging with, and offering specials to your customers – awesome! Now what? Well, it is time to look at the small details a little further and a little bit closer. Here are some things that I recommend you do on foursquare for your organization:

Identify Employees – you should take the time to identify any and all of your employees who have a foursquare account. Most people who are regulars at your establishment do not want your venue mayor to be one of your employees; they have to work there five to seven days per week, so it is tough to compete for the mayorship when they have that built-in advantage. This is especially true if your venue offers a mayor special; by allowing your employees to compete for the mayorship along with your loyal customers, you are just asking for your customers to drive-by check-in each day in an effort to keep pace with your employees’ check-ins. By identifying your employees, you disable them from holding the title of venue mayor!

Be Creative – customers, prospective and loyal, love a nice special, so make it worth their while to visit and check-in at your venue. If you are a car dealership, don’t just offer a free air freshener with purchase of a new car. If you do that, you would be better off not even having a special. So, do not slap your customers in the face. Instead, find creative and cool ways to interact with them. Pick out the best type of special for your company, your products/services, and your customers! Test what works for you!

Fill Out Venue Details – this would be number one here, but I figured this has to be common sense. Once you have successfully claimed your venue, you really need to take the extra minute or two to fill out every field within the venue page. Sometimes, your venue information will be incorrect; other times, the information will simply be incomplete. Be sure to provide the correct address, phone number, cross street, Twitter profile link, website link, and venue description. These few minutes are a worthwhile investment, so don’t slack here!

Participate – if you are a venue manager on foursquare, you should also be using the app on a personal basis too in order to understand how it works, how people use it, and how the app evolves over time. You should see how your venue page looks on the mobile app so you can better assess your next marketing campaign on foursquare. Of course, you can then participate with your customers who check-in via their other preferred social media channels like Twitter and Facebook! I encourage you to engage them accordingly! In addition, I recommend that you check out the latest conversations on Twitter about foursquare, especially the weekly #4sqCHAT chat (Monday evenings at 9pm EST – GMT -5:00). For the latest news about foursquare, I recommend checking out AboutFoursquare.com! It is filled with great stuff, and their weekly podcast is great for those who prefer listening over reading!

In conclusion, it is great to see that you have added foursquare to your organization’s or brand’s marketing strategy. Now, you just need to focus on building upon that by focusing on the little things that will differentiate your business from the other 600,000+ currently using the foursquare platform!

As most of you know, I am deeply passionate about foursquare. I enjoy using the social media network, I enjoy telling others (both personal and businesses) about the power and coolness of foursquare, and I enjoy checking in once in a little while… okay, I check-in a lot! I have set up and coached many local brands and organizations on foursquare, and I have grown to meet some great people because of foursquare – both professionally and extra personally! I have even spoken to groups of professionals about foursquare and how to use it to engage [current and potential] customers. Basically, foursquare is a big part of my social media presence.

With that said, there are times when I feel that foursquare missed an opportunity along the way or could have done something better, but, for the most part, foursquare’s team is extremely on; they listen to their users and are always on the cutting edge. Ultimately, they take ideas from the crowd (their recommending users and from within their intelligent staff) and make them a reality, and they have lots of fun along the way. As a result, they have grown to easily become the leader within the location-based services industry! Because of their awesomeness and my biased appreciation for what they brought into my life, I am loyal to them and am passionate more every day! So, what’s wrong?? Well, I am really disappointed with how foursquare set up a recent badge.

Sure, I have been a little frustrated in recent months when I was denied and couldn’t get my account converted over to a follow account and hence am unable to accept the additional 130 or so people (and growing) who still want to be friends with me on the system and even when my request to be promoted to level 3 superuser status was turned down, but that isn’t what is really finding me most confused right now. Instead, it has everything to do with their recently added “Service Badge” that was made available on Veterans Day! My beef is with the requirements on/of foursquare users who are looking to unlock this badge; as AboutFourquare.com mentions, “users will be able to unlock it by checking in at a Veterans Day celebration today, or in the future by checking in three times at their home base.”

Why I’m Really Upset

I am upset about the methods required to unlock this badge. First, you can unlock it at a Veterans Day celebration, but a specified venue category was never mentioned, and it is not like I should have to create a venue called “Kennesaw Veterans Day Celebration” just to see if I can unlock this. Some people unlocked it when they went to a parade, but (oddly enough) Atlanta did not have their Veterans Day parade until Saturday, November 12, 2011, so that would not help me unlock this badge. Second, you can unlock the badge by checking into your “home base.” While that term is a bit ambiguous, I take it to mean three check-ins at one base, but there is something called National Security out there; if you do not have a current and valid military identification card (CAC), your chances of getting onto the base are very slim, so this means that veterans who served but did not retire from their respective military branch can’t get on the base, so is foursquare wanting me, a former Marine Corps Reservist, to merely drive-by check-in or pull up to the guard shack / gate of the military base so I can get my badge? Third, why is it that this is the holiday that foursquare selects to make it more difficult to get the respective badge? In many previous cases, a simple holiday-related shout would unlock the badge for that holiday; most recently, this was the case on Halloween when I just had to shout “Happy Halloween” to unlock one of the badges and merely attend a swarm over the Halloween weekend to unlock the other badge! It was simple, it was fun, and it allowed users to spread the Halloween excitement and related message. So, it is surprising that foursquare would make the Service Badge so difficult to earn. Many veterans celebrated by attending meetings and luncheons with their families, friends, and fellow veterans. Great restaurant venues like Applebees, Olive Garden, Hooters, Huddle House, Shane’s Rib Shack, and TGI Friday’s offered free or discounted meals to veterans, so many celebrated that way; I shouted “Happy Veterans Day” at various venues when I was celebrating the day with others, even at the LA Fitness gym (that I go to daily) as I worked out with fellow Devil Dogs and soldiers! Overall, it just seems that some on the foursquare staff are not completely familiar with the ways of the military – which is understandable since there are no veterans currently working for the awesome company, but it was one missed opportunity that I hope never happens again. Of course, it would be unfair for me to complain and vent about something without coming up with some recommended alternatives or strategies that I feel would have better served the situation to begin with!

What I Would’ve Done

Simply, if I was an employee and team member at foursquare and wanted to make it a bit tougher to earn this badge, I would have followed the Halloween strategy and created two badges, one for Veterans Day with a simple shout to unlock it and spread the true message and meaning of the celebrated occasion and another for Service, making people check-in at a military base three times to unlock it. Also, if foursquare and its partners wanted to celebrate, thank, and bring exposure to those who serve even more, why not add a badge for each service of the military for their birthdays; then again, this could be a nice opportunity for the Military Channel! If the Military Channel did not want to get involved, I am sure that the UFC could offer a Devil Dog or OohRah badge to celebrate the Marine Corps Birthday since the UFC has a strong strategic partnership with the Marine Corps ~ or that could even be something that marketing professionals within each branch should look at. But, getting back to the basics, I just wish foursquare would have engaged their military veteran foursquare users (and their families, friends, and top supporters on foursquare) before missing out on such a momentous occasion. For now, I guess I will have to go out of my way to go to a nearby Marine Corps Reserve base to drop off some toys (Toys For Tots season) in hopes of earning this badge, but that is not a guarantee nor does it allow me to go back in time to get the badge on Veterans Day like so many of us should have easily been able to do!

Your Thoughts?

I’d love to hear what you think about the Service Badge and if you think foursquare should have made it easier or harder to unlock? Should there have been more than one badge on Veterans Day? And what other holidays do you think should have foursquare badges? If you were the person at foursquare deciding on the requirements for that holiday badge, how would you decide?

The foursquare lists feature is one new and great example of how foursquare is allowing you and your brands to share experiences with your friends and followers as well as with the rest of the millions of foursquare users out there. Lists can be short or they can be long; I am unaware of a limit to the number of venues you can add to your lists. Plus, you can always build as you go – meaning that you can build a list today and come back tomorrow to edit and update it. You can add a description, some tips, and some pictures to complete your lists! Here are five great ways to use foursquare lists:

1. Tell your story – So, you went on a vacation or have a story to tell that revolves around check-ins? Well, no matter if you are using this for personal use or on behalf of a brand, building a list of these places can really help engage your friends and followers. Sure, you are not necessarily selling something using this method, but it can really boost your image and encourage your friends and followers to share your story with others. As mentioned before, these lists allow others to follow along and indicate if they have done a list item (ie check-in or tip), and that engagement then shows up on their profile page, thereby spreading your story! If this is your main reason to use lists, I’d highly recommend adding a tip and some pictures to list items! Imagine being a history teacher who wants to teach others about the Civil War ~ a foursquare list or two would allow the teacher to tell his/her story or to share a history lesson of sorts! 4sqLoveStory is in the process of building a list to tell its story, and foursquare has even used lists to tell how foursquare started!

   
   

2. Market a Product or Service – Are you an author or have a product that is offered for sale at a limited number of venues? Well, if so, this might be a great time to build a foursquare list. You can help your fans find your product at a location near them. You have a lot of options here; you could build one large list for all locations within the United States or simply break the list down by region. Again, you know what might suit you the best, so create a list or two to help your fans become customers of your latest product or service. Recently, Mike Schneider and Aaron Strout co-authored the book, Location-Based Marketing for Dummies. To better reach their readers, Mike and his employer (Allen & Gerritsen) created a nice foursquare list of various bookstores where you could pick up a copy of the book. So, if you are in Atlanta and want to physically look at the book before purchasing it (instead of just grabbing it online), this list will help you find which bookstores are supposed to have it in stock for your convenience!

   
   

3. Category Recommendations – Do you have a list of favorite restaurants across the United States or throughout Europe? How about a list of favorite local businesses in your area that you want all of your foursquare friends and even other foursquare users throughout your area check out? Well, foursquare allows you to build this type of list to share with your followers. Tristan Walker, head of business development at foursquare compiled a list of the best restaurant views (ever)!

   
   

4. Showcase Venues – Sometimes, you might just be in a situation wherein you want to showcase a rare venue and/or a rare service/product. Maybe, there is a little hype or buzz about something but finding locations where to get the product or service is merely a bit of a mystery. This is yet another perfect opportunity to build and share a list with the rest of the 10 million plus (and growing) foursquare users out there! Here is an example of how I recently used foursquare lists to showcase my personal rare Godiva hot chocolate hot spots. Quick story: In 2009, I contact Barnes & Noble’s corporate café division in hopes of talking them into bringing back their awesome Godiva hot chocolate or at least make it available for me in my area. After a few phone calls and being connected with a very helpful, understanding, and customer-first district manager, my hot chocolate option became an option for me at some of the nearby Barnes & Noble stores. So, instead of just bragging about this great beverage, I wanted to share with all foursquare users just where they can go to get this item that is not on the menu. Sure, I created tips at these locations, but lists allowed me to bring this all together and conveniently organize it for all to consume!

   

5. Announcing Tours and Events – Are you a band who does not see the true power of foursquare? Or are you an author doing a book signing tour in the near future? Or what about our favorite topic – politics? Are you a politician running for local, state, or federal office? If so, you could use foursquare lists to outline your upcoming tour stops and events.

As you can see, foursquare lists can be a powerful thing. Also, do not forget that there are creative ways to engage your audience through lists. You can friend request those who follow your list and/or engage with them via Twitter and Facebook (when and as appropriate). By creating a list, adding a few tips, and attaching a few photos, you can soon begin to share your personal (or brand) experiences with others! Are there other reasons or ways to use foursquare lists? I’d love to hear your stories! Which foursquare lists do you think are most creative and/or are your favorites?

If you are a venue manager of a claimed venue on foursquare and are responsible for engaging with customers who check-in at your venue, I recommend that you give VenueMachine a look. VenueMachine is a third-party app that came about as a result of the recent worldwide foursquare hackathon! In essence, it helps alert the venue manager when specific foursquare customers check-in. Specifically speaking, this free app focuses on those with Twitter profiles. Of course, by now, you have probably seen your claimed venue’s analytics page that shows who your customers are, when they tend to check-in most frequently, and which of those people checked in most often or most recently within a certain timeframe. If you focus in on the list of users who have checked in most often or most recently and if those people have a Twitter account, it is nicely linked to the right of the name and picture. But, VenueMachine allows you to get SMS (text message) alerts when foursquare users with a Twitter profile check-in to your venue. Moreover, they let you specify which users or types of users you want alerts from based off of their related Klout score. Here are some tips!

1. Go to the VenueMachine site and connect with your foursquare profile.
2. Once connected, put your mobile number in the notification section (right side).
3. Set your Klout threshold in the notification section (set it to 1 to capture all Tweeters’ check-ins)
4. Now, just watch as the alerts come in!

This is a great solution for those social media consultants and managers who have lots of venues or lots of clients (or both) to manage. Also, this tool allows you to be alerted if someone with a particularly high Klout score (who might be truly influential in your local area) comes into your business. While I always recommend tweeting each of your venue visitors (if you know their Twitter handle) after their visits to thank them for taking the time to stop in, but I would certainly recommend using VenueMachine if you want immediate alerts while on the go if somebody with a high Klout Score comes into your (or your client’s) establishment. Lastly, I am sure that the developers Barnaby Malet and Namit Chadha are working to add new features and other improvements to their VenueMachine tool, but I would encourage you to see how this might help make your customer relationship management (CRM) life much more manageable!

Within the next eight days (Aug 4), I will be turning over into another decade as I migrate from my 20s to my 30s. I welcome this new chapter in my life as if it was just any other ordinary milestone; I continue to push towards achieving my many goals and dreams. In addition, I continue to enjoy the ways of technology and, specifically, social media! So, turning 30 is not a bad thing for me; it just means that my years are flying by even faster than before. I recognize that life is precious, and life is short, and we cannot take tomorrow for granted. With that said, I cannot hide my birthday wish list any longer, not for one more year, and not for one more day! Of course, this is not your ordinary wish list; instead, it is a list of gifts I’m love to receive from foursquare! Since foursquare is something that I am truly passionate about, something I have grown extremely excited about, something that I use just a few times (well, lots of times) each day, something that unexpectedly introduced me to my girlfriend, something that I am confident in, and so much more, I find myself most attached (and maybe a little biased) to this awesome social media platform, so it is only fitting that I start off by revealing my foursquare wish list. So, here is what I would love for foursquare to give me for my birthday!

Promotion from Superuser Level 2 to Superuser Level 3

With over 10,000 check-ins, I have been a loyal advocate for foursquare. I follow the rules, learn about the great new features of foursquare, and I then share my experiences and foursquare knowledge with everybody who needs help. Many people have assumed that I was already a level 3 superuser, but that is currently not the case. I continue to contribute to Foursquare Help (on Twitter and Facebook) in an effort to assist people in resolving their issues. Also, I have been honored to share my foursquare insight on the AboutFoursquare podcast on three occasions thus far. I am a regular on the weekly #4sqCHAT that is held each Monday evening at 9pm EST. Also, as a Foursquare Ambassador, I reach out to businesses in an effort to help them join the [foursquare] party, to help them use foursquare to better connect with their customers, and to ensure that they venue information is correct. I check the local and country-specific merge queue quite frequently. While I haven’t worked as many foursquare venue requests from GetSatisfaction in recent weeks, I continue to use Twitter in an effort to help foursquare users resolve their venue and app questions or concerns. Promoting me to SU3 would simply rock, and it is probably the top thing on my foursquare wish list at the moment! Being an SU3 is no joke, for it comes with great trust and responsibility, and I feel this would be a great thing to have entrusted to me as I jump into my 30s!

Revisit Check-in Caps

I know that there spammers, jumpers, and constant mayorship cheaters out there, but there still has to be some type of middle ground here. Certainly, having 30 check-ins available is enough for many days, but that is usually not the case for me on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. I find myself having to strategize my check-ins or possibly even my plans to ensure that I do not get a rapid check-in error along the way. Here is an example. Let’s say that I have little going on early on Friday morning, so I only check-in 5 times before noon. Then, there is a gap wherein I am at the computer working on something important to me. Later, around 4pm, I hit the road and get some things accomplished before hitting the gym. Once in the gym, I am not checking in for one or two hours because I am pumping the iron. Afterwards, I go and hit the mall with my girlfriend before catching a late night movie. Oh wait! There’s a problem! By loading more of my check-ins during those later hours on Friday, I run a great risk of getting a rapid check-in error early on Saturday if I hit the farmers market, an event, or, God forbid, an amusement park. I love (and hate) how it is a rolling 24-hour cycle. If I go to the mall on Friday evening around 7:30pm or so and shop at 10 stores within those 1.5 hours before it closes and then hit a movie and a late night snack, I now worry that I am handcuffed the following morning since I know that I will be limited to 15 more check-ins over the course of the next 12+ hours. So, I guess checking in and sharing my experiences at the amusement park will be hampered until the following evening, but the park closes at 10 or 11pm, so now what? I am forced to selectively check-in (even more than I already am), forced to somehow hit the mall before I go to the gym (maybe on my lunch time or something), or forced to just blow through the rapid check-in scene knowing that my next check-in at some of the venues simply will not truly count towards mayorship or points. Many times, I just bite the bullet and not worry about the mayorship or points consideration in an effort to ensure that I am telling the complete story of my experience! For the record, I found this to be very true when it came time for vacation. I had to be really careful about where I checked in at on the drive down to Orlando and certainly where I checked into upon arriving because the trip to the Magic Kingdom, for example, was immediately following the next day. Luckily, we had a chill-out day at the beach scheduled for the day after the theme park instead of jumping to over to another Disney or Universal Studios property! That isn’t the plan for next year’s trip.

With that said, I am unsure what the number should be. Fifty is quite a big number, but, if you pulled an all-nighter and was active for 24 straight hours (although rare), that is just a little bit more than two venues per hour. One idea that I have internally debated was the thought of charging heavy users like me a minimal monthly fee to be given a higher (or unlimited) cap, but I worry that such a strategy and offer would turn around and hinder the overall foursquare brand and its message, making some think that it was all about getting money instead of connecting with friends and building relationships with local businesses! Still, I wish the 30 check-in rule was somehow modified for the heavy, legitimate user.

Convert My Profile to Celeb/Follow Status

As of this moment, I am sitting at 999 friends. Sure, most of these friends are not people in my inner circle whom I have grown up with; certainly, most are friends I have gained from being on foursquare. Many were added through meeting (mostly virtually) through my check-in (i.e. mayors of some of the places I frequented the most). Some were added and requested after interacting with or following up with after my AboutFoursquare podcast appearances. Others connected with me because of the interactions we shared via the weekly #4sqCHAT, following my speaking arrangements wherein I highlight the many great advantages foursquare has for the user and for the local business, and through virtual channels like Twitter wherein some would ask for my assistance with venue issues or abusive users. In a few select cases, I have friended people on the system whom many have thought to be abusing the system, and my email notifications would highlight if they were checking into 3 places within one minute of each other at a car wash at the stroke of midnight, etc. Being that I now live in the metro area of the second most socially-networked city in the United States (Atlanta), I have also gained new followers on the system. But, as we all know, users are limited to having 1,000 friends, so, unless my account type changes, I will only be able to add one more friend. Ideally, I would love to be able to organize my friend list so that I separate those who follow me (ie many of the global foursquare community profiles) from those who are my daily friends!

Hire Me to Open and Run an Atlanta Office

You have San Francisco, but now might be a great time to set the foundation in Atlanta, and I am here to help! Everybody already wonders if I am already an employee of foursquare, so let’s just make it official already! I did mention that Atlanta is the second most socially-networked city in the USA, right? Atlanta is home to some heavy foursquare users; many are close to or over the 5,000 check-in mark and even a few near or above the 10,000 check-in threshold!! I know it might be a stretch, but a good stretch once in a while is a great thing! Having a hub in the southeastern USA could be advantageous! Food for thought!

Foursquare Gear to Pimp at Gym & Pool!

I love sharing my foursquare enthusiasm with everybody, and that certainly does not stop when I walk into my favorite gym. On many days each week, you will see me proudly sporting my 4sqDay 2011 and the 4sqATL 4sqDay shirts. During the colder months, I also walk in with my foursquare mayor hoodie. I’d love to get a gym rat badge shirt (or even the artwork large enough so I can get a local print shop to make me one). Also, I’d love to find a way to get some foursquare swim trunks. I remember hoping this item would become available in the online foursquare store in time for the pool season, but I guess the demand is not quite there just yet! I’d settle for an idea of a good place to get some custom (one-of-a-kind) swim trunks made for a reasonable price and access to a large enough logo and/or pouty princess artwork, etc. to make it happen! How about a cool ability to buy a foursquare beach towel? I’m a dreamer, but somebody has to dream the good dream, right?

Well, those are the top five ideas I currently have on my wish list. Did I miss any obvious ideas that you think I should add?

It was raining and it was pouring, and the power went out on two occasions, but that did not stop an evening of fun, learning, interaction, and social media IP (in person) networking. The great folks at The Cotton Mill Deli stayed open later just for the event, and I truly appreciated that; plus, they had great food, so you cannot beat that nor their reasonable prices. The evening provided local business people from various industries information about how to use popular social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, and foursquare in order to better service their customer base! I must say that the evening was filled with great information, great questions, and some of my favorite topics.

Vince (from LookWoodstock) got things started off; he covered the basics of Facebook and how businesses can use pages to interact with customers. In addition, he spent time talking about some of the best ways to use Facebook. A few people had questions about Facebook Deals, and he was able to show the group where to go to get started with setting up those deals. Lastly, he brought up that pages likes are great, but it is always best to get those likes organically; paying for sheer volume is not really a great thing – it actually is a big waste of time and money.

Next, Olivia (from the GotoGrls) covered Twitter. She gave the group a lot of tips that really were helpful for the Twitter newbies! Plus, for those Twitter veterans in the crowd, those tips were viewed as great reminders of how best to use the platform! Some of the business people in the crowd have not yet used Twitter, so Olivia took the time to show how to setup a Twitter profile, how to follow, how to tweet, and how to stay organized via Twitter lists! Overall, this was a great How-To (and How-Not-To-Do) tutorial!

Lastly, I presented the ins and outs of foursquare, focusing more on why businesses should embrace foursquare. Below, I have included the presentation that I gave to the group, but here are a few highlights. First, foursquare is popular and growing. Second, foursquare is free to use. Third, there are over 500,000 businesses currently on foursquare. Lastly, foursquare provides another great means of reaching out and engaging with your customers and potential customers!

In summary, this was a great meeting. We endured Mother Nature’s twists and turns, and we enjoyed a great chance to meet together and discuss some of today’s most popular social media tools! I must conclude by saying that it was a great honor and pleasure to share my foursquare knowledge, tips, and experiences with the group; furthermore, I appreciate LookWoodstock (Vince) and GotoGrls (Olivia and Sue) for extending me the opportunity to speak about a topic that I am so very passionate about! I look forward to the next evening edition of Woodstock SM 101!

It was brought to my attention earlier today that version 3.2 of the foursquare app (currently only for iPhone) has removed the standalone shouting feature. Certainly, foursquare users can still check-in to a venue and add a shout, but shouting without first checking into a venue seems to be a feature foursquare is moving away from. For me, I have mixed emotions and concerns. Here are just a few of those current concerns:

1. Overall Check-in Limitations: Currently, in an effort to keep the foursquare experience fair and balanced for all, foursquare limits users from getting credit for more than four check-ins every 15 minutes and more than 30 check-ins in a 24 hour window (you can still check-in as much as you want, but those “rapid check-ins” won’t count towards mayorships, badges, and points). These windows are rolling and in real-time, so that is a big plus, and, for example, most users would rarely need to check-in more than four times within 15 minutes. I do know that there are occasions where I am out-and-about, exploring the city, shopping, and/or traveling a lot wherein I find that, while I do not check-in at each and every venue I visit, I still reach or come close to these current limits. At such times, I sometimes turn to a standalone shout-out to let my foursquare friends/followers/fans know where I am at while I am buying time for the system to allow for more of my check-ins to count. I recently found this useful as some local foursquare friends wanted to catch up with me after lunch to chat about social media; if not for the standalone shout, I probably would not have used a regular check-in, especially since it was my second visit to that same venue on that given day (to me sort of a waste of a check-in)! So, if you are going to remove my ability to shout, please increase the check-in limit cap from (I don’t know) 30 over the 24 hours to 40 or 50? I find it tough to figure out what number is best for the heavy (non-driveby/spamming/jumping) users, but an increase would be nice, especially since standalone shouts were never capped.
2. Spam: If you have a lot of brands that you follow and/or friends on foursquare, I am sure that you have seen some random spam shouted out over the foursquare airwaves. I agree that it can be annoying, and I might (from time to time) annoy people with my shouts, but I can annoy people with my check-ins all the same. Luckily, the foursquare user has a good number of options to combat this. First, he or she can simply remove me as a friend. Second, he or she can decide to not receive pings from someone or some brand that happens to be annoying or spamming. When I think of spam, I first think of email. We all know how much fun that topic and experience is. But, just because people spam us via email, we should not eliminate the feature or technology of email, and email is tougher to control than the messages a foursquare user receives because spammers just need to know or guess your email address to send all of that junk to you, and then they can just send the same junk to you from another email address if you block the first email address. Although, I am not stating this is the main reason foursquare is removing this feature, but many will point to this helping to curtail spam; eliminating the feature merely to combat spam is not the approach I would take.
3. Third-Party Apps: Now, I do not use a ton of third-party apps nor truly (currently) understand the extent of which foursquare is removing the standalone shout feature, but I do know that, because foursquare encourages developers to use their API to connect to their user base and build upon the platform, many third-party apps connect with foursquare profiles and utilize the shout feature to communicate with the user’s foursquare friends. Great examples include but are not limited to Soundtracking, HootSuite, and TweetDeck (although, since Soundtracking is only available for iOS at this time, I have not used it, but I believe you can share the snippet of a song that you are playing in traffic or at home ~ similar to Shazam, etc.). Currently, I can schedule or directly post a shout of foursquare using HootSuite and TweetDeck, and I use these to shout links to some of the foursquare-related (and other) blog posts that I write; I am hoping that this option will not be removed and instead have the power to control what you, the users, see fall solely on the user! So, will this feature be removed from the API, or will the official mobile apps be the only ones that are affected? I hear that the other phone apps will have this feature removed, but the foursquare team does not currently build an official WebOS app, for example, so I worry how this feature will be handled across the board.

Overall, I found this news to be quite shocking. Apparently, foursquare feels that removing the standalone shout feature will enable it to better add its upcoming services and features – maybe a step backwards in order to take two steps forwards? Certainly, I am anxious to hear your thoughts! How do you feel about having this option taken away from you? Has this removal caused you to turn into a pouty princess?

Each and every week, Ching-Yu and Eric Leist co-host the AboutFoursquare Podcast. Each podcast takes a look back at the previous week’s technology news about foursquare and its related apps. They take a look back at the badges that have come out during the past seven days, and they bring on a few guests to engage in great foursquare conversation! Also, it must be mentioned that the podcast gets a good influx of listeners each week; personally, I am a loyal listener, enjoying the debate and insight each and every week. In addition, the podcast is now sponsored by OtterBox, the popular case company that “has technology covered!”

I must say that I have had the honor and privilege of being a special guest or guest host on three occasions thus far (Episode 19 from Februrary 2011, Episode 28 from April 2011, and Episode 34 from June 2011). We have covered some great topics and carried on some great conversations. For passionate foursquare users like me, it is great to see such a platform out there… and for that matter such a great site!

For anybody who has yet to give this podcast a listen, I highly recommend that you check it out. Whether you prefer to listen to podcasts using iTunes, using Stitcher, or using RSS, this podcast is a great way to remain updated and learn what’s new in the world of location-based services!

As AboutFourquare reported last week, foursquare announced it is promoting more loyal users to superuser status. Since their last mass promotions to SU status, foursquare has gained millions and millions of new users, gained more brands and small business venue claimers, and boosted its own staff numbers, so it is only right that foursquare helps itself out by adding more superusers to help maintain the neat and orderly landscape within the foursquare community that we all have grown to love. Over the past year, many active and willing users have inquired about how to get such a promotion; foursquare has now streamlined the process. Now, regular users can apply to be promoted to SU1s and SU2s. Foursquare still will manually look into cases wherein promotion to SU3 is appropriate, but this new process will help expand the SU community. In addition, with the new look and feel of the Superuser Admin Tools section, foursquare is now allowing current superusers to endorse those applying directly within the admin screen.

Of course, any time you add more people into the mix and at the level that foursquare is currently doing so, it is critical to keep all superusers (new and old) on the same page. Foursquare realizes this, and, therefore, it has redesigned and reorganized the look and feel of the superuser tools. Superusers now have one page where they can go to for resources (ie Superuser Guidelines, House Rules, Superuser forum, Style guide, and foursquare Support). It is now conveniently meshed together on the page where superusers go to process merges, confirm address changes, etc. For those newly promoted superusers, let me be one of the first to welcome you to the community. Speaking for the superusers I know, I ask that you take your newly-found powers and responsibilities seriously, and I look forward to working with you as we each strive to make the foursquare experience that much better for all stakeholders!

What do you think about the new superuser dashboard? And do you like that foursquare is opening up a smart application process for those interested in becoming a superuser?

Just a few days ago, it was my great pleasure to join Ed Peterson as a keynote speaker on the topic of location-based services (LBS). Mr. Peterson did a phenomenal job kicking things off about the topic in general and, furthermore, about the Google Places game! We all know that Google has a strong foothold in the online marketplace, and his knowledge about how to optimize the opportunities on Google Places really allowed me to fill some of voids in my understanding of Google Places SOPs. Google Places is a great resource for many brick-and-mortar businesses and one that I also recommend looking into. As Ed mentioned, if you have a business with a physical address, your business has a Google Places page, so you might as well go claim it and engage those who participate; the conversations will go on with or without you! Here are the presentation slides that Ed shared with the group:

After Ed wrapped up some more Q&A, it was my turn to share the power of foursquare! Most in the crowd are already using foursquare for personal purposes, but they have yet to claim their business venues or start a brand page. With foursquare continuing to grow and innovate at the pace that they are, more businesses (especially small businesses) need to take note! Plus, claiming business venues on foursquare is easy and free while giving businesses more power and opportunity to reach out to their customers, offer them a vast array of deals, and learn more about their customers’ visiting behaviors. Lastly, I pointed out that businesses are not alone in their quest to learn more about this newer and popular social media network; many free resources are merely one or two clicks away. For those who might have missed my presentation, here are my slides:

In summary, it was great to have such an interactive, attentive, and passionate audience! Hopefully, everybody enjoyed the presentations as much as I did!