Comments on: On Foursquare, nobody knows if you’re in the North Pole.

By: Joe Crawford

Joe Crawford — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 01:56:00 +0000

Abigail!

I appreciate the “Fair Play” thought. Games are more fun when they are fair. I wonder if Foursquare is looking for a way to factor in questionable checkins with less weight somehow.

And yeah, as a “texting” Foursquare user, I’ve checked in, like, almost not at all. If I don’t get the title “exactly” right, then it doesn’t really associate the checkin with a real venue.

Though I have to say, I’m not motivated enough by this to want to upgrade my phone.

Thanks for your thoughts!

By: Abigail

Abigail — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:12:28 +0000

I’ve had this starred in my reader forever cause I wanted to comment.

I use fsq religiously and I love it. I like that I can “cheat” because if I forgot to check in somewhere I can do it on the mobile site. However, I only let myself do it the same day because then it doesn’t change my points for the week.

I do wish there was more “fair play code” among users. There’s a Starbucks next door to my work that I go to 5 days a week. I had mayor for a few months until someone who worked there joined the same week I got really sick. She quickly stole it from me and I can’t get it back because she’s there as often or more often than me. It’s definitely not fair to be the mayor of your workplace says I.

Oh, and a big problem with the text option is that if you don’t know the exact name of the location, or it’s not listed, or it’s one of many, many Starbucks, checking in is very hard. One of my good friends loves playing, but the text just doesn’t work for her so she uses the mobile website to do her check ins. (It’s really compelling her to get a smart phone.)

By: Joe Crawford

Joe Crawford — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:43:20 +0000

Yeah, I’m not sure what to make of this “problem” — if indeed it is. I’m curious to see how these mobile web apps adapt to this kind of user behavior to keep engaging for the non-cheaters and cheaters alike.

By: Alexander V

Alexander V — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 06:08:45 +0000

Interesting post, this has been going on since Day 1 of Foursquare unfortunately. And now that Foursquare has gained some traction in the social media circle of the “checkin apps” I agree it needs to address the issue of making sure the users GPS coordinates are correct. There are tons of threads at the Foursquare support forums debating just what to do with those foursquare users who check-in via Text Message. Its a tough one to call, do you just ignore a huge base of users and not let them play just because they don’t have a smart phone? or do you allow them to play knowing some will cheat and check-in at places they are not in b/c it does not send the GPS data.

I think in the end Foursquare might do away with allowing Text Message checkins once the usage of it drops down a bit.

Though this is a problem for all social media sites that use GPS coordinate data. I can fake my location with foursquare, twitter, Google’s Buzz or any app that uses GPS data from an app that controls my GPS output on my iPhone.

Good tip on the FoursquareX mac application, Im checking that out and it looks pretty neat. Looks like you could fake your location on that too pretty easily. Oh well, maybe its for the best we have these loopholes when it comes to getting GPS data attached to our social media outlets, you know… for privacy and all. (or at the very least an illusion of it)