Foursquare
Foursquare is an app for your mobile phone that allows you to check-in to places around town, meet up with friends, and explore your city. Foursquare users collect achievement badges and become the official mayor of places that they visit more often than other users.
I originally heard about Foursquare on the TWiT podcast network. Once I finally got an iPhone a few weeks ago, I was eager to try Foursquare, having heard so much about it. I installed Foursquare on my iPhone, as well as GoWalla, a Foursquare competitor. I’ll go ahead and say that I prefer Foursquare, largely because of the badges and overall fun nature of the app. It also helps that it is much more popular in my area than GoWalla. I’ve never had to add a location into Foursquare in any of my check-ins.
I found GoWalla to be adequate. The user interface is nice. The problem for me was that after many check-ins using both services, GoWalla did not have the place I was visiting in their database even once. I found myself having to add places manually, which eventually wore on my nerves and took some of the fun out of using the app. If it is popular where you live, you may feel otherwise.
Give Foursquare a try. You can install it on iPhone, Android, Palm, and Blackberry devices. I have my check-ins forwarded to my Facebook account so that my friends can see where I am even if they aren’t using Foursquare. Sure, it’s kind of nerdy, but I enjoy it.
