I was one of the lucky few Foursquare users who  recently received an invite to download their Beta Blackberry app. The Foursquare mobile site seriously sucks, and the app makes it easy and fun to ‘check in’, find out where my friends are but also get recommendations from fellow Foursquare users.

The really clever thing about Foursquare is that it reaches a segment of Internet users (such as myself) who wouldn’t traditionally leave reviews on recommendations websites such as TripAdvisor or Qype. I also really like the idea that restaurants, cafes and even brands can send real-time discounts and offers  to ‘locals’.

As I logged onto the Fourquare website yesterday, I noticed that they are appealing to the community to create new city badges. New York already has a ‘Far Far away badge – welcome to the world above 59th Street’, and I think it would be quite fun to have North, South, East and West Londoner badges.

Saying that, I don’t see much value in Foursquare badges in their current shape and form, so I started thinking about how Foursquare could add value to its community of users.

I am not sure what the deal with Foursquare’s API is, but it has the potential to spawn a multitude of cool applications very much like Twitter. Now imagine a Foursquare/Google Maps mashup where you could map out the venues you’ve been to on holiday, and generate a guide of places worth checking out. Based on this concept, you could create ‘city experts’ badges, ‘certified foodie’ badges or ‘bar hopper’ badges thus establishing Foursquare users as experts in a certain field, whilst benefiting from their recommendations. How cool would that be?

Do you use Foursquare to find out where your friends are or perhaps to discover new places? Do you see any value in Foursquare badges in their current format?

As always, thanks for reading!