Practicum #8 - The end of the Foursquare adventure

I’m on my last blog post, and I can end on a strong note: I’m the mayor of another place! And a far more legit place than the Vilas Zoo’s Primates section or a shelter in Vilas Park ⎯ I’m the mayor of Coffee Bytes. WIN.

I’m wrapping up my 3-page paper as well, and in terms of continuing my future Foursquare use, it’s still up in the air. Maybe I’ll try doing it without cheating for once and see how many badges I can rack up.

However, I do still wonder how long Foursquare will be around. According to this article, Foursquare is working on creating a recommendations function that would, based on your check-in history, offer recommendations on where you should go. It would be like Apple’s Genius function, but for Foursquare:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/12/13/businessinsider-meet-the-twenty-something-ex-bear-stearns-vp-turning-foursquare-into-a-yelp-killer-2010-12.DTL

We’ll see where this thing goes. Right now I see Foursquare as more of a trend that could eventually become outdated and overlooked in favor of social networking sites that integrate the geosocial function into its main framework, like Facebook Places.

Then again, it could catch on big time, moreso than that 1% of internet users statistic I referenced in my presentation. Who knows?

Practicum #7 - Cailley

Over the time I’ve spenton Foursquare, I’ve come across a mystery. In all of my fake check-ins, there’s one person who is the mayor of a lot of what I come across. His name? Douche Le’Rouche.

His picture: a guy with a trucker hat on a tilt, and not one, but two polos with popped collars. I’ll let you be the judge of such an ensemble.

I finally looked up this guy on FourSquare today. He has 10 badges, but holds mayorships at 23 different places! And his mayorships are largely held at places popular within Madison’s nightlife. Just a few include State Street Brats, the Red Shed, Monday’s, Madhatters, the Kollege Klub, Wandos and Whiskey River Saloon.

So this one guy pretty much has a monopoly on all things nightlife in Madison.

This guy doesn’t just check-in everywhere, though, he is also sure to leave tips. All of total quality. Check out the image I added to get a taste of Douche Le’Rouche.

I’m guessing this guy’s name isn’t really Douche Le’Rouche. So what comes to mind with him is identity tourism. Most people on FourSquare stick to their real identities, so this is the first time I’ve come across anyone creating a fake persona.
Along with trucker hats and polos, this character has a personality that can be detected through his check-ins. He largely sticks to places people go to have fun (bars, restaurants), and the tips he leaves at places are all, well, douche-y. And he's a popular guy: a lot of his tips have been liked by others.

Anyway, read his tips and enjoy.

Practicum #6

I’ve accomplished my goal! I am now the mayor of something. Actually two places:
-the Vilas Park Shelter
-Vilas Zoo Primates

Yeah, not too exciting. This is one of the interesting things about FourSquare: You can make pretty much anything ⎯ be it a house, a restaurant, or a random park bench ⎯ a place for yourself and others to check-in to. That maximizes the possibilities for mayorship, but it also minimizes its importance. As a mayor, am I on the same level as someone who is the mayor of a more popular space, like, say, the Majestic? Or Humanities? (I don’t know who these people are who are mayors of school buildings, but I respect the dedication.) Honestly, I don’t think I am on the same level, and if being a mayor can mean that I rule part of the zoo, then I think being a mayor is a little questionable overall. What does it mean? Who cares?

Then again, being mayor of the primates house is a little cool.

Practicum #5 - Cailley

I have a confession to make.
So I said last time it was my goal to try and go out of my way to check-in to new places, I’ve instead gone down a different route – I’m cheating.
Okay, so I’m cheating, but I swear it’s all for good reason. Let me recap that article I mentioned in my presentation: There’s a restaurant that offers a special deal to that month’s mayor – the right to skip ahead to the front of the line. This being a tempting offer, people would check-in while in the near vicinity of the retaurant, and not actually while at the restaurant.
In light of this, FourSquare has given establishment owners the right to dethrone the mayor, if they think the mayor is someone who lied to get to his/her position.
This is what the Huffington Post refers to as an “armchair mayor,” which honestly sounds a little awesome to me. (See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/03/foursquare-cheating-mayor_n_777933.html)
So while in class, I decide to check into my location, and a few others. Here’s a screenshot of my history. Note that I wasn’t actually at any of these locations on that day; all were available selections for my GPS location. (In other words, I'm not a boozehound as that history implies.)
I’m not just cheating because I can, or because it’s fun (and it is), but because I really wanted to explore a question of ethics: can the potential upsides to FourSquare be brought down by cheaters? In particular, it is that blossoming relationship with retailers that I see really coming into question with cheating, and I wonder if eventually cheating will defeat the system, so to speak.

Practicum #4

As I mentioned in my presentation, my use of FourSquare has come to a stagnant level. Now, it’s official.
While I do sign in everywhere I go, the problem is that I go to the same places: Vilas, Humanities, Grainger, Michelangelo’s for my weekly meeting…so on and so forth. Basically, I live an exciting life.
So it’s about time I mix things up a little. From here on out, I’m going to try to go out of my way to check-in to new places. If one of the purposes of FourSquare is to serve the adventurous, well, I’m going to be adventurous and see how well it pans out.
I’ll keep you posted on that, as well as my other goal at the moment: to become the mayor of something. That would be the icing on the cake.

Practicum - Cailley

My job for the semester -- try out a locative service.

I wanted to try this one out because I have very limited experience with it. While I was an intern at Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this summer, one of the things I wound up doing was creating a nightlife blog for JSOnline.com. The three of us helming our blog wanted to try using FourSquare as a means of keeping track of where we've been, and to also let readers know where we were in case they wanted to meet up with us.

In the end, FourSquare wasn't as successful as we hoped. (I might discuss that more in-depth in the presentation.) So I thought I'd give it another shot from a recreational perspective and see how it went.

So far, things aren't too exciting. My life is pretty hectic right now, and I barely remember to check in when I'm at a new location (though I usually do when we're in lecture or discussion for this class). Other times, the web connection just takes too long and I get antsy and put it away.

An initial observation when using FourSquare: like pretty much all social media, there's not much of a point when you don't have any friends to share your info with. I have maybe five people as my "friends" on FourSquare, so in a way, I feel like my tracking everything is for naught. So...if any of you guys are on FourSquare, friend me!

Anyway, I'll keep trying to remember to check in wherever I go, and see where things lead.