Have you wondered what all of the fuss over Foursquare and Gowalla is about, but were unsure what it all means?  Have you even heard of Foursquare of Gowalla?  I will do my best to answer both of those questions.  In this post I am only going to cover Foursquare.  In a nutshell, Foursquare is a location-based social networking tool.  OK, that didn’t help much did it?  Foursquare is like adding GPS mobile technology to social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter.  Users download the Foursquare application to their GPS enabled phones; they make Foursquare for iPhone, Blackberry, Android, WebOS and Windows Mobile.

When you launch Foursquare and are out and about, you will “Check-in” at any local establishment.  Let’s say you are at the popular nightclub in Downtown Minneapolis, The Lounge (my Brother’s place ), and you check-in there.    The application will let your network of friends (who also have Foursquare) know that you have “Checked-in” to The Lounge.  Foursquare, will keep track of the fact that you have checked-in to The Lounge and will keep statistics on how many Check-ins you have there.  It will also let anyone else who logs into Foursquare know that you have checked-in to The Lounge that night and at what time.  Even if they are not friends with you on Foursquare, they will see that you have checked in there and they can invite you to be a friend (if you accept their invite, much like Facebook).  It is a great way to make friends as well as see who is currently checked-in to a particular venue.  If you have checked into a venue more than anyone else, you will be crowned “Mayor” of that venue until someone checks in more than you, at which time you will be ousted as Mayor.

When you check-in at venues on Foursquare, you are also awarded badges and points. You are awarded points for checking into new venues and you are awarded points for multiple check-ins on a single trip.  You can also earn badges which will be displayed on your Foursquare profile for earning different achievements like total number of check-ins, traveling to different cities, club hopping, etc.  Checking in at Apple Stores will earn you a special Apple Store badge.  How you earn badges is a closely guarded secret by Foursquare, so you will need to just go out and check-in and try to unlock those badges.

Part of the social network experience of Foursquare is to connect with friends on Foursquare.  You can find friends through your Gmail account, Twitter, Facebook connect or just see who is at a particular venue.    It will scour through each of those services and see which of those contacts are signed up with Foursquare.  If you have any friends that are signed up, it will give you the opportunity to invite those friends to be friends on Foursquare.  You can also invite anyone at anytime on the entire Foursquare network to be your friend.  The only information that Foursquare reveals publicly is your First Name and Last initial as well as City and State.  As I stated earlier, when you invite someone to be a friend on Foursquare, they only need to accept your friend invitation.

Once you are friends with someone on Foursquare, you will be able to see, once you are logged in, whenever they check-in somewhere under the “Friends” tab.  The whole idea around Foursquare originally was that if you were out and about you could find your friends by logging into Foursquare and see who was at a specific location near your current location without really having to make any calls.  So if you were bar hopping and wanted to see who was close by, you could select the “Places” tab and it would show you a list of the closest venues.  Once you select the venue you want, it would show you a list of people who have checked-in there recently.  If you liked who was there, you could go there and hang out. That was the whole idea behind Foursquare.

You can also link your Foursquare account with Twitter and Facebook.  When you do this, you can control what messages are posted to each of those respective sites.  When you check into a venue on Foursquare, it will ask you if you want to share with your friends as well as share with Twitter and Facebook.  When you share a check-in with either service, it will create a post (on Twitter of Facebook) along with a link to the Foursquare site where the venue has a listing.  It will give some stats like who the mayor is, how many times you visited the venue, how many people have checked in, how many unique visitors have checked in and a map of the venue (on Google Maps).  It will also show some comments from people who have visited the venue so you can perhaps get a feel for the vibe of the place.

As a Foursquare user, you can log into the website and see a history of all of the places you have checked into and you can actually delete any unwanted check-ins.  There is a stat page which will show you the total number of days you have checked-in, total number of check-ins, the average check-ins when out, the new places discovered and the distribution of check-ins during the week.  It will break down your Mayorships, your most frequented venues, number of different venues visited and most frequented cities.  There is also a friend tab where you can track what is going on with your friends.  Click on a friend and you can see their badges, Mayorships, Top 12 lists (recommendations), their latest check-in feed, links to their Twitter and Facebook profile as well as a high-level view of their stats.

Currently, the points don’t really mean anything, although there was a charity drive last winter where you could donate your points for charity.  At this time, they don’t really mean much.  The tips and to-do’s area really are about sharing your experiences with others.  When you check-in at a venue, you have an opportunity to add a tip about the place.  If you are at a restaurant, you can add a recommendation.  At a movie? Tell everyone if the seats are good.  At a club? Recommend a drink.  The to-do’s are really a note to self.  Even though this is a location-based tool, you can go “off the grid”.  That is, you can check-in and hide your location.  You can check-in to a place, earn points, and not let your friends know about it.  Just select to not let friends know and you will be “off the grid”.

One last thing to note from a features perspective and one of the major differences between Foursquare and Gowalla.  They are nearly identical in most every way except one.  Foursquare allows you to search and check-in to virtually any venue from anywhere you are.  Gowalla, restricts your ability to check-in to a venue unless you are in very close proximity to the venue.  So you could check into Best Buy with Foursquare from your house if you really wanted to.  With Gowalla, you actually have to be at Best Buy.  Now there are some problems with Gowalla.  If the person who originally set up the Venue on Gowalla was not all that close to the Venue, it can throw things off.  I have literally been inside a Best Buy and tried to check in and it said I was 500 meters west of Best Buy and it “greyed out” the check-in button.  Foursquare has stated that for now it will allow people to check-in from anywhere but that it will not award badges or points unless you are within a certain proximity to the venue.  So you can build up your check-in numbers but cannot earn any Mayorships or badges.

Now that I have explained the features and benefits of Foursquare and by way of Foursquare, Gowalla, what do I think of it?  To be very honest, not all that much….yet.  If I lived in New York, I would be way more into it I think.  Perhaps it is an age thing too.  Since I really don’t go out all that much, I really don’t see the need to check into the Barnes & Noble, Starbucks, P.F. Changs, Home Depot and Guitar Center all that much.  Whenever I am out and do look at the places tab, I have yet to see one of my friends checked in, so it really hasn’t caught on yet amongst my peer group.  Perhaps in New York and LA it has, but certainly not in my area and not in the way the founders originally intended.  What I think has caught on is the pursuit for badges, huge amounts of check-ins and Mayorships.  I see folks out there with thousands of friends all over the country and hundreds of Mayorships.  I am really not sure where this all is going, but it sure will be fun to see when we get there.    I found Gowalla frustrating that I was at a venue and could not check in because I was apparently too far away from the venue when in actuality I was right there.  For me, I will keep using Foursquare when I remember to pull out the iPhone and check in, which is actually not all that often.  I have only a handful of friends on it and personally only find it mildly amusing for now.

So, have fun, download Foursquare and join the check-in revolution!