I have been hearing a lot of people saying that Foursquare is going to be the next big thing, and I thought you might be interest in knowing about it, or if you are using it, you may wish to share your experience in the comments below.
What is Foursquare?
Foursquare is a location based game which encourages people to find and share interesting places (restaurants, museums, bars, etc) with friends.
People play Foursquare via Smartphones “checking in” or “leaving tips” about real world locations as they go about their everyday lives.
Information that you are putting in to Foursquare about the locations that you are interacting with is pushed out in to Twitter and Facebook for your friends to see and left on the Foursquare page for that location so if someone checks out your gallery, they may have written a review of an exhibition for other Foursquare users to see.
To encourage users to “check in” they receive points for visiting places, and the person who checks in to a location the most get’s made the Mayor of that location.
Museums and Foursquare
The Vancouver Police Museum is one of the institutions who have embraced Foursquare by offering incentives to the person who is Mayor on the game (and in doing so encouraging people to visit the Museum).
The Mayor of the Vancouver Police Museum gets free entry for themselves and a friend and 25% off in the gift shop.
Brooklyn Museum also offers incentives to those who “check in” on Foursquare, offering a one year 1st fans membership to their mayor on the first Saturday of every month.
Looking at Foursquare a few Museums are offering similar incentives.
The next big thing?
Foursquare is being hyped as the next big thing, so perhaps now is the time to make yourself aware of what it is all about, even if it is just to see what people have written about your Museum in the game. Whether Foursquare makes a big splash or not, I think this kind of location based review will become popular in 2010 to some extent.
Is your Museum is using Foursquare in some way? I’d be interested to hear about your experience.
I think with Foursquare it’s very important to realise your venue (whether it’s a museum or not) can become part of the game even without you knowing it. As the number of users grows, people will start discussing your museum without you knowing about it. Personally, I’m the mayor of a museum and they don’t even know about it. Okay, I won’t be saying bad things, but some people might. Or, they might be saying really good stuff about your museum, give recommendations. The Foursquare community is a quite positive one and – at least here in Holland – they’re a serious one. Recommendations by friends are easily followed.
Check it out, you might be surprised!
I am trying Gowalla rather than Foursquare. Seems better interface to me and easier to follow.
[...] scritto qui). Relativamente all’ambito museale vi segnalo l’articolo di Jim Richardson Foursquare for Museums. The next big thing? Foursquare is being hyped as the next big thing, so perhaps now is the time to [...]