Practicum 3 - Kim

The Foursquare website is an additional resource for people who use Foursquare on their mobile device. On the Foursquare website, people can find friends, view their badges, their mayorships, and their check-in history. In fact, on the “Stats” page of the Foursquare website, users can see multiple graphs and charts that highlight their number of check-ins, percent of check-ins at new places, number of different venues visited, most frequented venues, and more.

For example, this is a graph depicting the distribution of my check-ins by day of the week:

Additionally, Foursquare players can use the Foursquare website to find and add friends. On the “Find Friends” tab, Foursquare users can choose to find friends through Facebook, Twitter, or G-Mail. To do so, you must enter your Twitter, Facebook, or G-Mail username into a search box. Foursquare then searches through your contacts, locates friends and followers who have Foursquare as well, and asks you to add this person to your friend list.

I decided to find more friends using my Twitter account. Foursquare found eight people I am following who have Foursquare as well – 50 cent, Ellen DeGeneres, and six other acquaintances. I decided to add two of the people to my friend list. Currently, I have twenty friends.

While looking for friends, I learned that I could connect my Foursquare account to my Twitter and Facebook accounts as well. Fortunately, I can choose which activities I want to share on these networks. That is, whenever I check-in at a venue, I can opt out of sending my check-in to Facebook and Twitter.

I decided to connect my Foursquare to my Twitter account. Now, when I check-in at a venue, my check-ins appear as a new tweet. Example:

Klsachs: I'm at Memorial Library (728 State St., at Library Mall, Madison).http://4sq.com/c4xh1p

Now, even people who do not have Foursquare know where I am at all times. I’m not sure if I am going to keep these accounts linked for a long time. I do not like broadcasting my whereabouts over Twitter for everyone to see.