Is Foursquare the next Twitter? Now Charlotte can play | CLT Blog
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Is Foursquare the next Twitter? Now Charlotte can play

Posted on 20 Nov 2009 by Justin Ruckman

foursquare

  • online location-based game
  • participants earn badges for checking in at places around town
  • highest ranking user for a given place is its “mayor”
  • active early adopter user base mirrors the early users of Twitter


Yesterday Foursquare, an online location-based game and social network, opened its doors to 50 new cities around the world. Previously the service was only available to a select handful of locations, including New York, San Francisco, and nearby Raleigh.

Now Charlotte can play. And for a number of reasons, there’s a lot of chatter speculating that Foursquare could soon be on its way to Twitter-like stardom. Why? For one, it’s got a core active user base very similar to what Twitter had some three years ago. It also shares with Twitter a number of prominent investors, including @Jack Dorsey of Twitter himself.

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So what are you supposed to do anyway? It’s not centered around sharing updates, but it does update your Twitter for you if you want. The focus is logging your favorite haunts around town, competing with friends for who explores their city the most, filling up a top 12 list with your best tips and challenges for local adventures, and in turn trying out the tips and challenges of your friends. The more you interact, the more points you get. And the most active person at any given location is automatically crowned its “mayor”.

Sound silly? So did Twitter not too long ago. It remains to be seen how far this will go, but feel free to head over and make an account to try it for yourself. Post your profile in the comments so we can be sure to friend each other.

Here’s an article from Mashable founder Pete Cashmore on CNN, detailing why he thinks Foursquare is on its way to stardom, including more specific details about its founding and ongoing development.

Comments

  1. Bri 21 Nov 2009 at 1:04 AM

    http://foursquare.com/user/bribuzali

    just joined!

  4. Matt Comer 22 Nov 2009 at 12:26 PM

    http://foursquare.com/user/interstateq

  5. David Wells 23 Nov 2009 at 2:35 PM

    http://foursquare.com/user/davidwells

    I don’t really get how to play?

    Anyone else know?

    • David Wells 23 Nov 2009 at 2:38 PM

      ok I just checked out the mashable article and still am confused lol.

      I think I’m just going to stick with friendster =P (jk)

    • Avatar of Justin Ruckman
      Justin Ruckman 23 Nov 2009 at 2:39 PM

      You need a phone w/ app support or web access to really make use of it. You an update via txt too, but I’m not sure how interactive that really is.

      Basically you check in at places around town when you visit them. The person with the most activity at a given place becomes its mayor. You can leave tips for your favorite place that will show up when other people view that location, and you can view other people’s tips and mark them as completed once you do them.

  6. Avatar of Justin Ruckman
    Justin Ruckman 23 Nov 2009 at 2:36 PM

    duh, should leave mine too:

    http://foursquare.com/user/jruckman

  10. Jim Van Fleet 23 Nov 2009 at 3:03 PM

    I like GoWalla better (available on Droid and iPhone), but if this is where everyone else is going to play, I’ll keep both up for awhile.

    http://foursquare.com/user/bigfleet

  12. Wayne Sutton 23 Nov 2009 at 3:34 PM

    I visit Charlotte a few times :)

    http://foursquare.com/user/waynesutton

  13. matt wackerhagen 23 Nov 2009 at 5:13 PM

    http://foursquare.com/user/mattwack

  14. Avatar of Patrick M.
    Patrick M. 23 Nov 2009 at 5:28 PM

    http://foursquare.com/user/-119773