Posts tagged as:

foursquare

The Dark Side of Location-Based Apps

by Michelle Lentz on February 17, 2010

Do you use an app like FourSquare or GoWalla to tweet out your location? I’m guilty of this – I’m Mayor of both my favorite bar and coffee shop. When I visit a new location, that information gets sent to Twitter. I’m a little different from most people – since I am twittering my location, I send it to my private and locked Twitter account. Since I approve all of my followers at that account, I’m minimizing the risk of unwanted stalking.

Do you list your home on FourSquare? I have to admit I’m always a little bit amazed by the people who list “Jones Home” and then their address. Really? I work out of my home, but my mailing address is a PO Box. I will occasionally use FourSquare to show I’m at my office, but the location that shows up is the PO Box, not my house. Again, I’m minimizing the unwanted stalking.

Today on Twitter, there’s been a lot of buzz (forgive the pun) about PleaseRobMe.com. The site wants you to be aware of what you’re doing when you tweet to the world that you’re not home.

According to the site creators,

The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you’re definitely not… home. So here we are; on one end we’re leaving lights on when we’re going on a holiday, and on the other we’re telling everybody on the internet we’re not home. It gets even worse if you have “friends” who want to colonize your house. That means they have to enter your address, to tell everyone where they are. Your address.. on the internet.. Now you know what to do when people reach for their phone as soon as they enter your home. That’s right, slap them across the face.

So the message here is think before you tweet. After all, do you really want to be featured in the stream on PleaseRobMe?

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Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.

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Wanna Know Which Angels are Playing FourSquare?

by Brian Solis on October 10, 2009

In September, we covered the latest investment in FourSquare, a popular mobile app that fuses geo-location, micro updates, outside social networks such as Twitter, and social gaming into one, very social and addictive platform for the iPhone and Google Android phones.

Initially O’Reilly AlphaTech and UnionSquare Ventures were identified as investors. However, behind the veil, FourSquare also aligned an all-star list of investors and advisors. Yesterday, the company finally revealed the names behind the mystery…(descriptions amended)

Let’s play…

Jack Dorsey, creator of Twitter.
Twitter has changed the way a lot of us think about things – presence, status, search.  Jack’s advice and feedback have already proven to be invaluable as the team hustles to improve and grow foursquare.

Kevin Rose, founder of Digg.
A day after FourSquare launched at SXSW, Kevin tracked us down and bullied them into making a badge for Digg’s party.  Since then he’s been one of their biggest supporters and a great source of advice and product ideas.

Joshua Schachter, founder of Delicious.
Since FourSquare launched, people have been describing parts of it as “Delicious for places”.  Obviously, they love this comparison and have been thrilled to have Joshua’s feedback and insight into their product goals.

Alex Rainert, co-founder of Dodgeball.
Very few people understand the mobile/social space as well as Alex.  Since their very first iPhone build, he’s been throwing feedback and product suggestions at us. Karen Bonna-Rainert, Alex’s wife and a good friend from Dennis’ grad school days at ITP @ NYU is also actively involved.

SV Angels LLC
The angel group founded and backed by Ron Conway is a major player in seed-stage tech investments since the early days of Google.

Chad Stoller, NYC branding/advertising/interactive superstar.
You can thank Chad for the “mayor” idea – which he demanded that the tream build so he could flaunt his loyalty to Think Coffee.  FourSquare sold out and wrote the code in exchange for two beers.  :)

Sergio Salvatore, long-time music / technology entrepreneur.
A long-time friend of Naveen’s, Sergio’s been advising the team on scaling and technical architecture issues since the early days of foursquare.

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Unionsquare and O’Reilly Play FourSquare for a Purse of $1.35 Million

by Brian Solis on September 4, 2009

Dodgeball 2.0 a.k.a. FourSquare may soon announce a seed round of $1.35 million according to a new SEC document reported by PaidContent and a direct company confirmation given to TechCrunch.

According to the stories, UnionSquare Ventures and O’ Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, as well as unnamed angels, have invested $1.35 million as a seed round.

FourSquare is a popular iPhone app that fuses geo-location, micro updates in the FourSquare network as well as other social networks such as Twitter, and social gaming into one mobile app for the iPhone and Google Android phones. Versions are imminent for Blackberry and Windows Mobile (courtesy of Anand Iyer).

When Twitter hit SXSW in 2007, it was primarily used as a source for sharing and finding friends as they scoured the streets and events strewn about Austin, Texas. In 2009, it was all about FourSquare.

The company was founded by Dennis Crowley, the creator of Dodgeball, which was eventually sold to Google where it was slowly forgotten and subsequently terminated. The team working on Dodgeball at Google have left to join FourSquare.

Similar to Twitter and other mobile location apps such as BrightKite, FourSquare provides you with an integrated activity stream of friends based on where they are and what they’re doing. In addition, FourSquare introduces points, the ability to earn badges, to do lists and tips, among other interactive, social, and competitive aspects. Each time that someone checks into a location, for example, it not only updates the stream, they also earn points. Users accumulate points the more they check into particular locations, contributing to an ever-changing leaderboard determined by locale. The more a player checks into an establishment, they can earn “mayorship” until someone else assumes the role by visiting the location more often than the other. Local businesses are picking up on this activity and offering free food and drinks to the mayor of the proprietorship.

I firmly believe that Yelp should take a serious look at FourSquare as it can bridge mobile reviews with local commerce and promotions tied together by a portable, mobile social graph. Robert Scoble agrees.

Loopt, an officially Apple-endorsed location-based network for the iphone and other mobile platforms, announced that it has solidified a partnership with AT&T that allows iPhone users to run the application in the background to automatically update their location and be alerted to when their friends are nearby.

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