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This article was published on May 7, 2012

If you’re a foursquare “superuser”, then you need hopscotch for iOS


If you’re a foursquare “superuser”, then you need hopscotch for iOS

Being a foursquare superuser is serious business, there’s a lot of responsibility that comes with the honor. Not sure what a foursquare superuser is? Here’s how the company characterizes it:

If you’re a perfectionist who loves proper grammar and spelling, if you twitch a little when you see a duplicate venue, or if you cringe at a venue with missing or incorrect information, just fill out this application to apply (make sure you’re logged in to your foursquare account). Friendly tip: you should read our guidelines first!

Basically, if you use foursquare a lot and get annoyed by duplicated, unorganized, or bullcrap venues, then you’re the type of person that the company wants to be a “superuser”. Once your account is given this blessing, you’ll be able to make changes for venues. It’s a brilliant way for foursquare to harness its community to help it make sure that it has as much correct information in its databases as possible.

If you’re one of the superusers who have signed up for this crowdsourced policing, then you know that making changes to venues isn’t the easiest thing to do, especially since the web is the best place to do it. If you’re not at your computer, then you’re pretty much out of luck.

A new third-party app called “hopscotch” is specifically for foursquare superusers and brings all of the tools together that you need to update venues on the go.

Protect and serve

If you’re a foursquare superuser then it’s very likely that you enjoy editing venues to make they’re as accurate as possible. I’ve met a few people who have complained about specific venues not having the proper address and such, and I’m always the one that ends up fixing it to their delight. It’s a neat trick at a bar, for sure.

Hopscotch for iOS isn’t a full-featured foursquare app, it’s just for superusers and allows you to search for venues to edit, or check the ones that are close to you for accuracy:

As you can see above, once you click on a venue, you’ll be able to make the changes that you see fit. Of course you must be a superuser to be able to use the hopscotch app, and once you allow the app to access foursquare, you’ll be able to make all of your edits as expected.

Sure, this is an app for a small subset of users, but it definitely makes the “job” much easier. When I’m waiting to hop on a plane, I usually go through all of the suggested venue changes and duplicates reported by foursquare users to do my part and clean things up.

Hopscotch makes this all easier. If you’re not a superuser on foursquare, you can apply to be one here.

hopscotch for iOS

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