When I arrived in Philadelphia for Thanksgiving break, I was really excited to use Foursquare. For the past three months, I have only been using Foursquare in Madison, checking in at the same locations and competing with the same people for mayorships (Hi Natalie!). I thought that when I arrived in Philadelphia, my Foursquare world would grow – I would get new badges, add friends, learn about venues in my town, and potentially earn the title of mayor at my favorite restaurant. Almost immediately, however, I realized that my Fourquare live news-feed was empty – I was unable to view my friends’ check-ins on the live news-feed when they were located in different cities. Instead, my friends’ check-ins were on a hidden “Friends in Other Cities” news feed that was inconveniently located at the bottom of the Foursquare check-in homepage. As a result, I rarely used Foursquare at home.
Overall, I realized that Foursquare truly is a social network – if you are not being social, there really is no reason to use it. Admittedly, Foursquare does provide other motivations for use – monetary rewards for check-ins, mayorships, and mayor specials. However, social interaction and friendly competition motivate users to continue to check-in to earn these rewards– without a social aspect, Foursquare is boring and uneventful.
As this project comes to a close, I am sad to say that I am no longer the mayor of Ingraham Hall, my apartment building, Hillel, or my sorority house – I have zero mayorships and therefore have received zero mayor specials from the venues in Madison. However, I have earned many badges – Newbie, Adventurer, Explorer, Superstar, Bender, Crunked, Local, Super User, Super Swarm, Animal House, Smells Like School Spirit, and Swarm. Additionally, I have utilized a lot of the “insider tips” and recommendations uploaded by other Foursquare users. Overall, Foursquare has helped me learn interesting facts about Madison!
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