The Influence of Foursquare. Foursquare is a location-based social network that motivates its users to get out and explore a city using three basic concepts – loyalty, encouragement and discovery. In January of 2011, Foursquare stated on its blog that the company grew 3,400%. That's not up to Facebook's numbers, but the platform has made a place for itself in the social media world and has a dedicated base of users around the globe - Foursquare is reportedly nearing 7 million users. Now that it has been around for a while, we were curious to discover what influences users to participate. Foursquare is best known for its badges, which users get when they check-in to certain places.
Users can also gain the title of "Mayor" when they've been to a place more than anyone else using Foursquare. Other elements that play into Foursquare's game dynamics include special offers and tips. We set out to discover which elements are most influential to Foursquare users. What elements of Foursquare influence you the most? Connect: 2011: The Year the Check-in Died. Early last year, "checking in" was the cool new craze. No visit to your favorite tech news site could be had without getting buried in an avalanche of articles about Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, BriteKite or a myriad other startups. The big guys quickly followed suit: Yelp introduced "Check-Ins" while Facebook launched "Places" and most recently, Google Latitude updated to incorporate check-ins and check-outs.
But here's the thing: the trends aren't actually that good. Let's look at Foursquare and Facebook. First, there's no doubt Foursquare is throwing off some impressive numbers (e.g. the company's recent announcement of 8.5 million users). It typically announces total, rather than active, users and that number is roughly growing linearly at present.
Total users, by definition, of course, only goes up - yet according to compete.com, Web traffic has declined for five consecutive months, amounting to a 50% reduction in traffic over that period. Why Check-ins Are Going to Falter. FourSquare v3. Facebook sbarca in Italia. Get Location-Triggered Task Reminders on Your Phone. Forget to pick up paper towels on your Costco trip? Neer's location-triggered reminders could help save the day next time around. That feature is available now as an easter egg, unbeknownst to anyone, and will make its formal debut in the startup's iPhone and Android apps at SXSW next week. Neer, the private location-sharing app for iPhone and Android, is infinitely more useful now that you can set to-dos, attach them to places and then get a buzz next time you're in the area. Here's how to unlock the hidden feature: navigate to the "Feedback" tab, press and hold the card title "Feedback," and type "todo" (case sensitive) into the pop-up.
Voila, you now have access to magic location reminders, as Neer calls them. Come next week, new versions of Neer for iPhone and Android will put to-dos front and center for all users. Soon, to-dos can be shared and assigned to friends and family in the application. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, SparkleArt. Foursquare. How To List Your Business In Google Places with 5 Easy Steps | My Venture Pad.
Google Places (formally Google Local) allows business owners to add their business, so that their customers can find them on Google. It also allows business owners to update and manage the physical location of the business. The information will also appear in Google Maps, and will be associated to Google properties. Google places even allows business owners to enter contact details, description, categories, operation hours, payment options, pictures, videos, and coupons that customers can print and use on their business.
If your business is not registered in Google Places, it’s time to follow the simple steps to get it listed there. Remember that Google is the most popular search engine. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Google Places will allow you to add information about promotions, coupons, photos, videos, and more.