Foursquare: Adventures in Profit for a Cause

This morning, @foursquare tweeted out a new initiative they've undertaken to help translate points earned on their social check-in service into dollars and cents.

Perhaps I should begin with a brief explanation of what Foursquare is and how it works for those of us outside of the know. Foursquare is a relatively new service, essentially oriented around users checking in and telling the network where they are, then providing tips or advice concerning their location. For example, I might "check-in" and say "Come to McDonald's and get a Big Mac. An icy cold coke is the perfect complement to your burger!" I then get a point for checking in (plus maybe one point for my first stop of the night), and five points for adding a new venue (if the McDonald's I'm eating at is not already in their database). I could also get a few points if I'm checking in at that McDonald's for the first time.

If users "check-in" at one location numerous times, more than anyone else who checks in at that location, they become the "mayor". For example, I happen to have eaten at Polkadots, which is a cupcake bakery across the street from my apartment, twice in the last week, and since other people seem to rarely check in there, I'm now the mayor. When another Foursquare user checks in at Polkadots more than twice, they will oust me and become the mayor themselves.

As you continue to "check-in" at various locations, you unlock badges based on how many points and check-ins you have. Badges range from "newbie" to "explorer" to "overshare".

For more information, there's a blog post I wrote earlier this semester on the Texas Tower PR blog exploring Foursquare and its potential, wondering how it will utilize the capabilities it has for promotion and possible advertising, among other things.

What's new for today is how Foursquare is hoping to make points count towards charity.

Foursquare is hoping to help turn points into money to benefit a program called CampInteractive. For one week in December, each check-in on New York City's Foursquare network will be worth $0.03, donated by a business partner. Foursquare began looking for such a partner today. In exchange for their donation, Foursquare will allow this company to re-brand the network's iPhone app during that week, giving them a great potential number of impressions for an estimated donation of around $4500.

This essentially throws the doors wide open for Foursquare's potential as a marketing and communications tool. I'm curious to see what kind of business partner Foursquare finds and how this kind of promotion will be used in the future. Obviously, if the skin of Foursquare's iPhone app is constantly being redone, the brand or advertising won't have a great effect on the network's users. Still, it could be interesting to watch brands turn to this new medium for communicating with their customers.

My guess would be that in the future, when Foursquare users "check-in" at a location, the location will have sponsored information embedded in the application. So when I "check-in" at McDonald's, sponsored information will show up telling me what the special of the day might be. If I were to become Mayor of McDonald's, I might be sent a particular code to use when ordering for a 20% discount, or some other kind of customer reward.

What else do you all think brands will use Foursquare to do for their consumers?

UPDATE: Foursquare has released their API, which reveals a lot more about their actual usability. View Mashable article.

Twitter Lists

I don't think my topic for today's blog will come as a big surprise to anyone who knows how much I'm into Twitter: Twitter lists are the next big thing to hit the service (can I call it the Tweetosphere? Like the blogosphere? That would be fun.).

Here's a basic breakdown on the functions of Twitter lists:

• Any Twitter user can create a list.
• Lists can be made public or private; that is, you can choose to share your list with others or to keep it to yourself.
• Lists require a title, and are then linked as part of your homepage (example: http://twitter.com/#/list/jordanlangdon/texas-tower-pr)
• Once you've followed a list, your homepage will show you all the lists following you (aka people who've listed you) and the lists you're following. What I mean is that following a list doesn't interrupt your usual stream of tweets. You can seek out that list whenever you're interested in viewing what's going on there.
• You cannot list yourself. [UPDATE: Apparently you can! I listed myself today, but hadn't been able to do that a few days ago. Interesting.]

So far, the Tweeters in my stream have created lists that categorize people in a whole bunch of different ways. I've seen lists created based on location (example: Austinites, NYC), by topic or interest (example: ATXFoodies, Social Media/Marketing) and by company or firm (example: Fleishman-Hillard employees, Texas Tower PR).

Sarah Evans (known for her blog on PR and social media, and as a Mashable contributor) wrote a great article exploring the future for Twitter lists last week. She suggested some new scenarios in which lists could be helpful tools, such as before events, during a political campaign, or when categorizing experts in a profession. I've been trying to think of a new example and can't seem to come up with one that doesn't fall under one of her 10 categories.

What do you all think? Are any of you using Twitter lists yet and if so what do you think of them?

Social Media Enables Our Endless Pursuit of Fame

Social media is the new "enabler".

We live in a culture filled with individuals, brands, and corporations, all trying to get their time in the spotlight. Some are hoping for fame because they're backing a good cause. Some are trying to sell a product. Some are endorsing a celebrity, musician, artist, or otherwise noteworthy individual. Regardless of the purpose, publicity as a whole is about helping consumers to talk about your brand. We're ALL in the race to get others to talk about us.

Our new social media channels (must I mention them again? Sigh.) Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, and the general blogosphere, among others, are filled with millions of people all talking or posting about whatever it is that interests them. With every insightful, interesting user, each of these sites also offers a robot, a stream of spam, or a real person who babbles about nothing.

Given our country's worship and idolization of celebrities, it comes as no surprise that social media can be compared to each citizen's attempt to get a little famous.

I have long been a supporter of the way networking sites allow normal people to interact with brands, celebrities, and other people or organizations they admire. How cool is in that I could write a tweet mentioning Perez Hilton, and he would respond? This happened to a friend of mine. Another friend of mine was able to correspond with an athlete she admires -- about dry cleaning!

There has to be a tradeoff to having instant connections to the celebs we worship. CNN suggests that our obsession with fame is fueled by the ability to contact celebrities, and then we spend the rest of our time on social media trying to produce the same effects as we experienced once when we wrote on Taylor Lautner's Facebook Fan page, and a representative of his responded to us personally.

Social media is the tool that enables us to continue our celebrity obsession, and by interacting with the stars we admire, we get to feel a little famous ourselves.

I can't really judge, though, since I often tweet @johncmayer and PRAY he responds.

Celebrity Death Rumors Rage On

"Like, oh my gosh guys, did you see that Kanye West died this week?! Yeah, R.I.P. Kanye."

"There was a car crash! R.I.P. Kanye West"

"What's with this new trending topic.... Kanye West died? What a loss."

Sound familiar?

How about:

"R.I.P. Zach Braff! CNN says he committed suicide!"

"I can't believe it, did Zach Braff really die?"

"Zach Braff was my FAVE actor. Garden State. oh em gee"

Okay, even I fell for the Zach Braff one for a couple of minutes. That fake CNN page, which now displays an apology from its creator, fooled me! The only laughable part of the situation was Zach Braff's YouTube response.

Over the past few months, Twitter has been the origin of a plethora of celebrity death rumors, including rumors about Kanye West, Miley Cyrus, Zach Braff, and Jeff Goldblum, to name a few. This has caused a growing buzz among social media addicts and many Twitter users, questioning the accountability and validity of Twitter and the news it spreads.

In Kanye West example, MTV posted an article openly declaring the rumors as untrue, the day before "R.I.P. Kanye West" became a trending topic. Yet the story still spread.

Such rumors seem to have cropped up (as far as I can tell) in much larger quantities within the last four months or so. Why? I can think of two reasons.

1. Uh, there are more people on Twitter! More spammers and bots, too.
2. Michael Jackson's death spread like wildfire on Twitter. In fact, I first heard about MJ's death via Twitter, from a friend who was posting a link from @HarveyLevinTMZ's Twitter account. TMZ actually had the story before CNN. CNN and TMZ reported his hospitalization around the same time, but TMZ, and in turn Twitter were at least 20 minutes ahead of CNN with news of his death. I was fascinated by this--how could CNN have allowed that to happen with such a huge story? The most obvious answer is that CNN had paused to verify facts and gather more information; Twitter had not.

The service has responded to all this false information with a variety of tactics, such as geographical tracking of tweets and a reputation system to rank users by trustworthiness.

Yesterday, Google announced its intention to include tweets within its search results. Glenn Batuyong comments on the Mashable article: "Congrats to Twitter! Let's hope that somehow this deal will improve Twitter's general reliability (HINT) but does this mean that fake garbage like 'RIP Kanye West' will be top SERPs on Google?"

Couldn't have said it better myself. Should be interesting to watch what happens!

Social Media's Impact on Methods of Contact

Yesterday I was watching Swingers, a popular 1996 comedy starring Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn.

One of the ongoing themes of the film is that Favreau's character, Mike, has an obsession with checking his voicemail. Since the film is largely focused on dating and dating etiquette, there were multiple scenes where Mike would get home and check his answering machine obsessively -- did his ex-girlfriend call? Did the girl he met at the bar call? What should he say when leaving voicemail for other women? What happens when the answering machine cuts him off? Should he call back? Will the woman pick up while he is talking to their machine? Who should he put on hold, his ex or the woman from the bar?

Mike was completely dependent on his voicemail, and his home telephone in general, to keep him in contact with anyone and everyone.

I was struck by how hugely social media has changed the landscape of communication today.

I suppose this movement can be separated into a few specific changes, mostly technological advances.

1. Caller ID may not qualify as what I think of today as "social media", but it definitely changed the way we communicate by being able to screen calls and choose who we talk to and when.
2. The cell phone is an obvious one. You no longer have to be sure someone is at home in order to talk to them.
3. E-mail: see You've Got Mail for example. This altered the landscape of communication drastically.
4. MySpace, regardless of its popularity (or lack thereof) today, was in many ways the beginning of online communication as we know it. This trailblazing social media site opened up huge possibilities. In respect to dating, this opens the questions way beyond voicemail: What does it mean if he/she sends me a message versus writing on my page? What if they put up pictures of us? If their status says "in a relationship", why did they flirt with me? Etc. etc. What does the message they wrote on their number #4's wall (via Top 8) mean?
5. Oh, Facebook. Obvious changes include the ability to link to another user in your relationship status, the ability to tag someone in pictures, and all the glorious poking.
6. "Following" another user on Twitter is arguably a pretty casual method of contact. Maybe this is a good way to contact the guy/girl you met on Friday night, rather than a phone call?

This list is certainly not exhaustive. Any other changes you all think are monumental to the current picture of communication?

Anybody else ever feel amazed by how much social media has opened up our streams of communication? Today, instead of checking my home phone's voicemail, I have to pay attention to Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, maybe Myspace, and my cell phone.

Remember what Drew Barrymore's character Mary said in He's Just Not That Into You? "I had this guy leave me a voicemail at work, so I called him at home, and then he e-mailed me to my BlackBerry, so I texted to his cell, and now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies. It's exhausting."