Sorry for the delay. If you’ve been following me on Twitter you’ll know that I’ve been all over the place recently.

The idea behind Foursquare was “I’m here. Now what?”

The platform enables users to quickly find places of interest within their network of friends and what their friends are doing at those places.

Twitter can and is used in a very similar way to Foursquare but you lose out on the functionality and community of the application.

Therefore, the value in Foursquare lies in the “Now what?” part.

As for the social proofing – it’s a very big part of internet marketing to continually test web page performance.

Pages where products or services are being sold online generally have a higher conversion rate when social proof is involved. This is why you have reviews on Amazon as you say, or testimonials on landing pages, or “as featured on Google/CNN/Fast Company” references.

There are tons of places online that you can find information that supports this such as marketingexperiments.com.

A typical day on the profile of a Foursquare veteran might look like this:

* Just got to the office. Karl is being an arse which is normal @ Pentagon Design (73 Clayton Avenue, Leeds)
* Lunch time = Sushiiiiiiiiiiii @ Yo Sushi! (The Promenade, Leeds)
* Just got back home – anyone going to the pub later? @ Carliol Square (Sandy Lane, Leeds)
* Onn thye way home noww . i thynkn i had a bit too mucvh @ Random Gas Station (Random road, Leeds)

Is there any value in using the service if one doesn’t take the time to tell the web what they’re up to?

Another question.

It’s warm – the probability that people will try a restaurant or bar based on social proof far exceeds the probability of them doing so from an advertisement in traditional media

Has there been any scientific research to see how this relates:

* Online vs offline? Is a recommendation more trustworthy or salient if a friend points to a restaurant as we walk by and tells me that I should try that place some time, versus when the same thing is said through an email or a public web site?

* With people who’ve met in person vs those who haven’t? Reviews seem to help Amazon with sales, so they must have some effect on peoples’ behavior … but I’m skeptical that online word of mouth could be as powerful as the offline variety.

If you have a bad reputation online, and furthermore if you still have some broken processes in your business that are causing this bad reputation, you won’t benefit from these services – in fact you’ll be hurt by them!

Thanks for the input Philippe.

You can check my good friend Steven Kim’s approach to maps and business with his GMAP company in Tokyo: http://gmap.jp/gmap/service.html
This is older but gives an idea of some innovations on the Japanese stage (long before Twitter) : http://www.japancorp.net/Article.Asp?Art_ID=10398

Philippe

It doesn’t matter if people aren’t using the services that much in your area – go out there and start adding venues, checking into places and most importantly – tweeting the status updates out there so that people know you’re active. Talk about it to your friends and colleagues. Rave about it on your blog.

Soon enough you’ll have encouraged some people to start their own accounts and so the cycle will continue.

Good luck in your endeavours my friend, and thanks for stopping by!