What To Expect From Foursquare

If you are in London, you must be excited about the launch of FourSquare. The application has been sweeping across the United States generating endless buzz at every turn. As a US man myself, let me tell you what to actually expect from the product, and what to avoid doing.

As you know, FourSquare is a very fun social application. If indeed you enjoy going out on a regular basis, preferably with a specific set of friends, you are going to love FourSquare. If instead you spend most of your time at home reading (reading TheNextWeb, of course) FourSquare still has value to offer, albeit in a different way.

Here’s a few things worth noting:

• If you do go out consistently, follow only your closest friends. No more than five. Push notifications can take over your phone so quickly, that you hardly can keep your pocket from ringing. If you must follow more (out of pity or courtesy), make sure to disable the notifications for most of them.
• Once you have your team, use the application extensively. The best part of FourSquare is ousting a Mayor and taking over a location. It is quite a hoot, if you will. By following only your closest circle, you will actually be glad when you get an update from the application. The information is fascinating when it is coming from a friend, and exceptionally dull from a stranger. Be careful of the boring, complusivley checking-in, stranger.
• However, if you are our reading, quieter type, FourSquare can still be quite useful for you. My tip, disable all push notifications. Instead, use FourSquare as a great way to track where you go personally, and update your Twitter followers in case one happens to be nearby.
• If you do not go out much, you will probably not become the Mayor of anything, so forget that part of the application. In an odd way, as a non power user you want to drop the game side, and focus on the utility area.

FourSquare is a fun, engaging, growing, and innovative mobile application. Why Twitter does not buy them, and merge FourSquare into Twitter is beyond me. But for now, London, get to work checking in across the city. Someone has to be the Mayor, you know.