I can probably blame (thank) David for this.
I am now no longer using Foursquare and no longer checking in to places. Though depressingly at the time of writing I am still the Mayor of Morrisons!
After having a podcast discussion with David about it (over on the e-Learning Stuff Blog) I did question why I was using Foursquare, what I was getting out of it, and potential benefits to me. I also wondered what educational benefits there were with learners using such a service within college.
To be honest apart from the satisfaction in “earning” badges I didn’t really see much benefit from using Foursquare. Very few of my “local” friends were using it, so even if did check-in to my local Costa, as none of my friends were using it, I wouldn’t know they were there…. well I guess I could just look round!
At the end of the day, for me it was a game, that wasn’t really that entertaining and when the GPS failed to lock on was quite frustrating. After chatting with David, I started to use it less and then just stopped. Not missed it at all.
There is probably something to be said to learners checking into college and seeing if their friends are there, or their co-collaborators and meeting up, but not sure if Foursquare is the best tool for that. At least with something like Places on Facebook there is chat built in too.
So are you still on Foursquare and if so what are you doing with it, or getting out of it?
I’ve recently come to 4square, having ignored it for months (years??). I totally agree with what you are saying. It feels like a game / competition, but not a great one. I checked in at the coffee shop this morning and really what was the point.
I don’t really use facebook so can’t comment on that but I also wonder if local Apps (like our LSE Ombiel one) will be more useful for this? Although, not sure how many are there either…
David Hopkins wrote this blog post on Foursquare yesterday, well worth reading.
Sorry 😕