social web game and inter-office smack talking

I have been competing for mayorship of JWT on Foursquare with some guy whose name on the program is Aface K. I tried to figure out who he was by looking through the company's address book with no luck. After I managed to steal it from him twice, he decided that he needed to figure out who his competition was. He called the receptionist and asked who "Katie F." was. He just walked up to my desk and said "you keep stealing my mayorship and it's not cool!" Haha! Some day I'm going to gather all 4 of us at JWT who play this game so that we can compare points and smack talk.

I recently commented on Gareth Kay's blog about a post he wrote concerning befuckingawesome.com. It's an online game where you gain points for doing good deeds, volunteering, etc. The points that you gain on BFA and 4SQ are fairly meaningless. You don't really win anything by playing, but frequent users are obsessed. Foursquare I was told a few months ago had an active user base of 50 percent - which is huge. 

These games keep it simple, they play on the competitive spirit and the human desire to win. Behavioral psychologists have found that competition in sports helps people become better athletes. So is competition in social media helping us become better at social media? Better at using it, better at building it, better at analyzing it?

keep your eye on this ball

Early adopters have found Foursquare addicting. Being one of them, I've noticed over time the increased number of friends joining the site and the number of those reporting being "checked in" at the same location as myself. One example I found funny was when I checked in at LaGuardia Airport one Friday morning a couple of weeks ago, there were two or three others (not "friends," but random Foursquare users) who had also checked in that morning. Who knew LGA was so hoppin?

3 Reasons why Foursquare will succeed:

1. Now hear this - Today's news is that Twitter co-founder, Jack Dorsey, just put money behind the company

2. Part of keeping tech alive is figuring how to make money off of it and Foursquare users will have noticed the more recent pop-ups on FS maps - special deals for the mayor of the store. Thanks to geo-tagging technology, the trend towards local, which started in food, is now moving into other business categories. Placing ads for companies on Foursquare will bring money into the company. If it is so extremely localized (holding a mayor-ship is something only one local person could realistically have) this could help mom and pop shops.



3. The growing relevance of geo-tagging technology: Since the number of Smart Phone users has increased, Google has increasingly been developing geo-tag products. Consumers will find that they no longer have to look for a store, it will find them. Now that we can get the info we want WHEN we want it via the real-time streaming web, we will grow to desire info WHERE we want it.

We are seeing the release of augmented reality tools that give information of a Smart Phone users world by simply looking through the lens of their phone. Now if Foursquare is able to incorporate AR...