blog till you drop!
A cocktail of advertising, social media, and technology
New shiny social networking site – meet Foursquare
Oct 10th
So yes, Foursquare is now available in London, and with it are all the badge-unlocking, social-drinking, night-life infesting, mobile gaming experiences our American friends have been experiencing for the better part of a year. It’s actually the kind of thing I was hoping Nokia and Dopplr would come up with following Dopplr’s acquisition…
For those of you who don’t quite know what I am talking about, Foursquare, is in a nutshell, a location service-based social network-come-game. What it does in effect is to tell you where your friends are and add a little fun to going out in the evening. It’s like Google Latitude meets a little bit of Facebook, a sprinkle of Twitter, and a dash of Qype.
The whole system is based around what is known as ‘checking-in’. You check-in from bars and restaurants and any kind of nightspot or watering hole, perhaps with a little message about where you are and what you’re doing – all very brief – and the system will then register what you’re up to. People who you’re friends with will then get pinged a message to let them know your whereabouts and activities, and the idea is that they can then decide to join you.
The really clever part
Every single time you ‘check-in’, Foursquare are also gathering some very considerable review and guide data for all the best spots in a whole bunch of major cities all over the world. It’s the kind of user-generated content that Qype specialises in but in a much less in-depth way, 140 characters Twitter style.
What Foursquare then decides to do with that is up to the business but there’s certainly plenty of commercial scope, if only for the desire of new bars and restaurants to get themselves listed or even to have a badge made just for them. Think about it as some sort of Boots reward card with all eating/drinking patterns stored on it!
The site’s interface is minimalistic but I am finding it a little confusing (again I haven’t had time to ‘check in’ yet so…) and I can’t wait to see an app for Blackberry users (please pretty please!!).
Londoners have RSVP’d to the challenge; what are you waiting for? And if anyone has had time to play with it, leave me a comment to let me know what your first impressions are!
The origins of Twitter?
Oct 9th
I got thinking about Twitter today (hat tip to Simon D.) and started doing some research about its origins – I came across both this interview and this photo by Jack Dorsey.
Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?
Reading the Twitter homepage, made me think about the different tools I have used to stay in touch with my friends and family over the years:
- I used to be a heavy MSN Messenger user when I moved to the UK – the status bar allowed me to let my family and friends know what I was up to
- In early 2000, texting revolutionised the way we used mobile phones. Updating your friends of your wherebouts had never been easier!
- Then came MySpace and Facebook; both have status bars, a nice easy way to update dozens of people at the same time
- And then came Twitter, asking a simple question, what are you doing?
This timeline (and time-consuming exercise!) has made me realise that Twitter is in fact, a repackaged MSN Messenger Windows Live Messenger.
The way we communicate and need to communitate is radically changing… I wonder what Maslow would think about that 
Introducing the ultimate Facebook on the go for the masses (and it’s a little scary!)
May 11th
It is being billed as the ultimate Facebook on the go! Instead of logging on to search for friends, mobile phone Bluetooth technology alerts people to other users logged on nearby. In other words, profiles, pictures and background flash onto the screen so users can decide if they want to strike up a real conversation.
The system piloted in Berlin, called aka-aki, can also reveal whether a stranger is a friend of a friend and even if you share the same interests to break the ice. Fear not, the system also allows you to screen out any undesirables. Pheww!
I don’t really see this service working in the UK the Brits love privacy, and in all fairness I find the whole concept a little scary! Although one obvious use for the service is dating, I think I would be a little scared of anyone randomly approaching me and knowing my name and lots of info about my life.
What do you guys thing about this service? Is it the next big thing or am I being paranoid?
More about aka-aki in English right here