Since the breakout of Foursquare at South by Southwest Interactive conference in March, people have been talking and blogging about location-based social media. For many people, however, foursquare is just a game they used to play – trying to become “king.” I have gathered some of the most important things to know about location-based applications in general, and Foursquare in particular.

1.    What is Foursquare?

Foursquare Business Development Director, Tristan Walker, describes Foursquare as, “part friend finder, part city guide. Essentially, we’re in the business of making cities easier to use.” At the most basic, Foursquare is a service that recognizes your geographic location and uses it to make geographically relevant posts to your Foursquare friends.  After downloading the Foursquare app to your smartphone, you can ‘check-in’ and ‘shout’ based on where you are at that time. For example, when you go to a bar downtown for happy hour after work, you can check-in (your phone will automatically recognize where you are and suggest the name of the bar) and post about the great drink specials of the hour. In addition, you can see if any of your other friends are at the same place or at a nearby establishment.

In addition to the fun of meeting up with friends, Foursquare also provides game-like features. Each time you check-in somewhere, you earn points (additional points awarded adventurous users!)  With those points, you can earn badges that serve as fun rewards for being a regular Foursquare user. Some badges include the “Newbie,” which is awarded the first time you check in somewhere and the “Adventurer,” when you have checked in 10 places. There are also fun and playful badges like “Far Far Away” and “School Night.”

What might be the most exciting honor is becoming the “Mayor” of a certain location. If you check-in at one location more than any other user, you become the mayor of that location. The perks that come along with being mayor are just one of the reasons why people enjoy using Foursquare.

2.    Why use it?

So what does they mayor get? It varies. Depending on the establishment and the involvement that each vanue has with the Foursquare community, you might get anything from a free drink to a free hotel stay, but those perks only last as long as you are mayor. Other users who have not reached mayor status also have the opportunity for benefits as they check-in across town. Some restaurants may offer discounts or deals to people who have checked in and posted tips. Tips allow you to inform your friends and the public about key things related to venues where you check in. You can let people know that a particular coffee shop has the best cookies in the world, and they can add visiting that shop for a cookie to their ‘to-do’ list.

In addition to these monetary advantages, Foursquare offers a new way to connect with local friends and local businesses in a way that wasn’t possible before. Businesses have begun tapping into Foursquare check-ins as a way to encourage discussion around their establishment and easily reward loyal customers for continuing to support their business. As the popularity of Foursquare continues to increase, the Foursquare team is working on additional ways for venues to reward checked-in customers.

3.    Best Practices

Though it is still in its early stages, some businesses have already figured out how to handle the Foursquare crowds. At a San Francisco café, signs have been posted offering unlimited free drinks to the mayor of that establishment. This encourages competition among Foursquare users to check-in more frequently in the quest of mayorship. This increases the amount of check-ins and the number of mentions of that particular café on online networks.

Check-in for Charity was a fundraising effort for Save the Children. The effort encouraged individuals to check in to Foursquare in Austin during the South by Southwest conference. For every check-in, $0.25 was donated to the Save the Children cause and raised the $15,000 maximum gift in just 48 hours and logged over 135,000 check-ins.

As the service takes on more momentum, businesses are guaranteed to increase their offerings with Foursquare, otherwise users will opt for establishments with better check-in deals nearby.

4.    Other location-based applications

While Foursquare may be the most talked about location-based service right now, it wasn’t the first. Brightkite was the first company to combine location sharing, friend connections, and status updates. The service created a photo and status update feed for the user’s check-in history and the location. Somehow all of these features proved to be too much, and it faded out quickly. In addition, the Loopt iPhone app became popular and satisfied many users but was missing “the real secret sauce” according to Mashable.com. The other location-based service that is receiving mention right now is Gowalla, which also features the check-in, share, reward model. In Gowalla, you receive “pins” rather than “badges,” but other than that the services are extremely comparable – the determining factor will most likely be what catches on with the public and businesses more quickly.

These four items will easily make you conversant on the topic of location-based applications and Foursquare, but the best way to learn the technology is by using it. If you have a smartphone, you can quickly download the app and begin checking in. Otherwise, you can set up an account online and check in at different venues by texting your location to “50500” and using the @ sign before your location. To view an introduction video and get started, visit http://foursquare.com/

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