
Hot on the eve of the South by Southwest conference, Dennis Crowley (founder of the mobile social service "Dodgeball") and Naveen Selvadurai opened the gate to a new new mobile lifestyle application called "foursquare" for the iPhone. Foursquare, introduces a new twist to the burgeoning landscape of mobile social applications. So far, the reviews are promising.
What makes "foursquare" different is it's, well, game play.
Built on a solid location based platform, foursquare makes mobile check-ins seamless (telling the network where you are in the form of a place, not a location, i.e.: "I'm at The Reservoir" not its latitude and longitude and approximate street address). As users check-in, their friends are alerted to their whereabouts along with "shout-out" messages with more details about what they are doing. Foursquare also includes Twitter integration so a user's whereabouts and what they are doing can be pushed directly to their Twitter followers. And yes, all of this can be turned off if you don't want anyone to know that you are with your best friend's girlfriend.
While other applications offer the user the ability to check-in and alert friends, foursquare provides users with an actual social incentive to participate and maintain repeat usage. As foursquare users check-in, they earn points and unlock badges for various achievements. For instance, go out four nights in a row and you'll unlock "bender." When you check-in to the same place more than any other user, you become "the mayor" of that location for everyone to see.
While check-ins and badges appeal to a competitive nature, foursquare also provides user generated lifestyle guides in the form of shared to-do lists. Users can post things "to do" in specific places and share them with friends. As friends complete these "to dos," then can mark them off on their own list.
Foursquare currently supports 12 cities including: Austin, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Minn/St. Paul, NYC, Philadelphia (ed. note: boo), Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, and DC. More cities will be added over the course of the next few months and as users from these markets adopt foursquare.
While foursquare is best optimized on the iPhone, it's also usable via SMS and most mobile web browsers. More information on foursquare can be found here.
I've been an alpha tester of foursquare for the past few months and have been impressed by the functionality and game play nature of the service. It's the social competition that keeps me coming back and I strongly believe that the competitive nature of the product will lead to the formation of an active user community of socially incentivized users who will "go out and play," as opposed to some of nascent mobile social networks that are out there.
With plane loads of social media and entertainment influencers hitting up Austin this weekend, foursquare is poised to be the talk of South by Southwest and may even be one of the mobile breakout hits of 2009.
Chad Stoller