Foursquare, the location based social network that has been dubbed
as this years Twitter, has added 50 new cities including Sydney,
Brisbane, Melbourne and Wellington. A full list of cities here.
The
service revolves around 'checking in' to locations around your city
such as cafes, bars, restaurants, parks, homes, offices. The theory
being is if your friends are also checking into places around the city,
you will be able to see where yourfriends are hanging out, and possibly join them.
However its not all about just meeting up with friends, Foursquare is also about finding cool cafe's, restaurants and nightspots from your own social graph as users can leave tips about each place they check into.
However
unlike many other social networks, there is a reward for checking in,
with various badges awarded for certain activities. If you check into a
the same place a lot, you might even find yourself crowned as mayor.
Foursquare, founded earlier this year, already has stiff
competition with other locations based based networks like Google
Lattitude and Brightkite. However many believe its its this addictive gameplay
element that sets Foursquare apart. Users vying for prestige in the
form of badges, must add value to the Foursquare network, in turn
providing a rich data set for other Foursquare users.
foursquare.com
