foursquare tips

Stimator tool sheds some interesting light

2011-03-13T16:07:00.000-07:00

Image via CrunchBase

Tonight I was killing a bit of time doing some SEO research for the PocketInfo site (when I should have been working on an overdue tax return) when I stumbled across this useful tool Stimator. One of the sites I like to keep tabs on is Mashable. They dominate a lot of the social traffic on Twitter and they tend to have a good grasp on the social media landscape.

Guest Post via PocketInfo

Mashable Stimator Rank 4 Value US$107,512,865

If you have a website or blog go the Stimator home page and drop in your URL or unique web address e.g. www.mashable.com . You will then see the calculation of the site if already indexed or you will see it working feverishly to acertain the sites value.

Recently another site I like called TechCrunch got acquired by AOL.

Techcrunch Stimator Rank 6 Value US$60,349,705

According to CNBC AOL paid about $40 million for TechCrunch. (They put the figure at $25 million in cash and the other $15 million as an earnout). So by Stimator's calculation AOL have actually done a good deal unless AOL management botch things up in the months ahead.

Now there is a spat I've been watching that's been brewing for a while about Huffington Post and the traditional stalwarts of the press the New York Times. Out of interest I punched in the URL for the Huff and whammo! It is the number 1 ranked site on Stimator!

Huffington Post Stimator Rank 1 Value US$485,933,886

Now my curiosity got the better of me - what is the ranking for the New York Times? I already know the Huffington Post has secured top spot , Bill Keller of the NY Times may not know how engaged the Post is with the new media age. So what is the result?...

NYTimes Stimator Rank 3 Value US$130,200,960

So the Times is only 2 spots behind the Post. But the Post is a relatively new organization and ranks higher than the Times and those online who want to link to it. Arianna you win the online strategy - respect to you and your team!

p.s. Stimator also ranks the Huffington Post's value 3 x more in dollar value than the New York Times.

Pocketinfo Reference - Geo-location , New Media , World Trends , Huffington Post , AOL , New York Time - updated 13th March 2011 Editor - Robert Latchford

SXSW Austin Texas - A focus on Country Trends

2011-03-10T04:58:00.000-08:00

Austin Texas

Guest post via Robert Latchford.

The first-ever SXSW Technology Summit will bring together industry leaders from a variety of European, Asian, Middle Eastern and South American countries for panel sessions that reveal trends and usage patterns in various parts of the world.

Scheduled March 16 and March 17, 2011
see Timetable and which countries are exhibiting below...

The SXSW Technology Summit international discussion sessions will run concurrently in separate rooms. Each session will focus on a framework of 15 questions about each country's technology scene, trends, innovation and infrastructure. See a schedule of participating countries* below but be sure to check sxsw.com/techsummit for updated information.

Wednesday, March 16
11:00-12:00
Salon F – France
Salon K – Japan
12:30-1:30
Salon F – Chile
Salon K – India
2:00-3:00
Salon F – Israel
Salon K – Colombia
3:30-4:30
Salon F – South Africa
Salon K – Brazil
5:00-6:00
Salon F – Mexico
Salon K – Germany
THURSDAY, MARCH 17
11:00-12:00
Salon F– China
Salon G – Italy
12:30-1:30
Salon F – Portugal
Salon G – England
2:00-3:00
Salon F – Scandinavia
Salon G – Singapore
3:30-4:30
Salon F – Ireland
Salon G – Russia
5:00-6:00
Salon F – Canada
Salon G – New Zealand

For a link to the Tech Summit go here

iPhone Apps dominate the App market

2011-02-25T04:55:00.000-08:00

Guest post from PocketInfo

Finland's Rovio dominant in 2010

Today I saw an article on Read Write Web by Sarah Perez and it was on "what are the top Apps outside the itunes App store" but what caught my eye was the following statistic...

Robert Latchford, Geo-location , Social Media , Socioeconomic Geography , Travel , Sport , Politics.

"...Apple was found to have generated 82.7% of the total global application store revenue in 2010, increasing its revenue from $768.7 million in 2009 to $1.8 billion in 2010."

Sarah - do you know what are the top 20 apps by revenue from this number above?
That would be really interesting data.
Thanks Robert

Sarah then directed me to a link of the top 10 (not top 20 , but 10 is more than adequate for the relevance of this article) which I have reproduced below.

As you can see a staggering 82.7% of total application store revenue comes from the itunes store and anyone who knows the 80/20 rule in sales will realise that these 10 apps are where most of the money was in 2010.

The hook ....As with most articles on PocketInfo is that their needs to be a geographic and socio-economic element to it.

Well Rovio the developers of Angry Birds are Finnish and they come from the same country of the handset giant Nokia! Both companies were at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last week and both companies have very different mobile operating system strategies.

Top 10 PAID iPhone Apps

Angry Birds
Doodle Jump - BE WARNED: Insanely Addictive!
Skee-Ball
Bejeweled 2 + Blitz
Fruit Ninja
Cut the Rope
ALL-IN-1 GAMEBOX
The Moron Test
Plants vs. Zombies
Pocket God

The Strategies of Rovio and Nokia are very different.

Nokia made the announcement at the Congress that they were going into an alliance with Windows and Rovio said that Apple’s iOS will remain the preferred platform for developers in the future, citing “fragmentation” in the Android marketplace as a major drawback for Google’s competing mobile OS. (The 82.7% statistic listed above is the main economic reason for this)

So it looks like Finland will still remain heavily involved in the smartphone and mobile market for many years to come. The difference is that the market has moved considerably since Apple and Google gave it a shake up over the past 24 months.

So itunes looks to be the place to make that pot of gold if you are an individual developer or niche mobile marketing business. Already in 2011 a new app is looking to push Angry Birds off the top spot and Tiny Wings (According to a post by techiebuzz ) is now the number one app today.

The Tiny Wings game was released on February 18, 2011 and it only took the app 6 days to knock Angry Birds off the top spot.Tiny Wings is apparently developed by an individual developer named Andreas Illinger The game play is navigating a tiny bird over hills by jumping, sliding, flapping wings and flying. A bit less violent than firing birds at bricks in order to crush pigs! Finland obviously needs more daylight!

Sources 40 , 52 , 55 , 56

Android dominates attention at Mobile World Congress

2011-02-18T00:04:00.000-08:00

Samsung - a Google Android partner

Guest Post from sister site: Pocketinfo.net

The Mobile World Congress is an annual event held in Barcelona widely recognised as the must-attend event for those that count in the mobile industry.

Corporations pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to show off their technology and position their marketing message for the year ahead.
Exhibitors invite customers to the event and if you want to attend without an invite then the cheapest ticket is about €600.00 (more that the annual income of many African people) .They charge this amount to keep undesirables out of the congress and in Barcelona there would be plenty sweeping into the event if it was more affordably priced.

Nokia made many of the news feeds in the early part of the week through its announcement about its strategic alliance with Microsoft Windows for its mobile O/S. (the ins and outs of that announcement won't be discussed in detail here but it is a significant and potentially fatal move for the Finnish mobile maker). Alcatel Lucent had a complete hall to itself (which must have cost upward of US $3 Million) a black and purple ambiance hall, somewhat isolated from the other shared halls with a bored looking app engineer manning each bland product station.

Upstairs on the Android stand at MWC2011

Inside the other halls it was all about a little green droid which definitely stole the show in 2011.

Google's marketing strategy for the week was clever - get a logo and a bunch of designers (like Andrew Bell at Dead Zebra) to play around with it .Manufacture some relatively cheap collectible items and create a frenzy amongst the Android brethren visiting the congress. Give some of the same items to Android O/S partners around the halls and release the items over the course of the week - result an android pin frenzy amongst visitors and exhibitors.

The Android Mini Collectibles and pins

The success of making everyone Android aware was so good that by the end of the week many executives from rival companies were shaking their heads in disbelief and putting signs up on their stands 'sorry we don't have pins' (Samsung Stand). or 'Noooooo pins ' as placed on the Huawei stand'. Even today at the close of the 4 day show there were still hundreds of people crowding the Android stand in anticipation of more promotional material. One US executive in his late 40's had collected all but 4 of the 86 pins released by Google during the course of the week and at 3.20 today there was a stampede on the main counter when they opened boxes of the mini collectible series.

Dead Zebra designed some of the material

The downside was apart from the people manning the application booths on the ground floor most of the other Google stand staff were one trick ponies who could only help with their pre-ordained task - making a smoothie or helping you to design your own Android anime! - Q : errr so what about collaborating in Asia Pacific - A: so what color do you want to draw on your Android boxer shorts?

My favourite picture was the one below of the guys manning the adjacent 'ghost town like' NEC stand whilst the hordes invaded with regular frequency the Google Oasis.

NEC Exec's not impressed by the Android hordes!

As far as the success of the show goes ....as every good salesperson knows - its in the follow up after-wards that counts. See you in 2012 - possibly in Amsterdam or Rome is the whisper!

Editor's View - Android blitzed the huge hall 8 at the MWC and I chuckled at the disdain and frustration of the 'old school' exhibitors. (particularly NEC , Samsung and Huawei) .The "pin fever" they created on their partner stands may be a stunt that 'Android Partners' don't want to be a part of again in future shows. Watch out for eBay particularly for the Dead Zebra designed Android collectibles.

Superbowl 45 - Shout Go Packers or Go Steelers to unlock a special badge

2011-02-06T11:16:00.000-08:00

Last year, Super Bowl Sunday was one of our biggest days for check-ins, with people around the world gathering at houses and bars for The Big Game. This year, we have some super exciting news for all you football fans: we’ve teamed up with the NFL for the biggest sporting event of the year – Super Bowl XLV! We wanted to give the entire foursquare community a chance to gather together, so we’ve created our first global venue, Super Bowl Sunday. Foursquare users around the world can check into the largest Super Bowl party – ever!

For the dedicated Steelers and Packers fans, show your support by shouting “Go Steelers” or “Go Packers” with your foursquare check-in to unlock a special badge. ‘Super Bowl Sunday’ will show up in your places list shortly before kickoff.

For those fans lucky enough to be at the game in North Texas, checking in will earn you a Super Bowl XLV badge to show off to your friends.
Along with each of the three badges, you’ll receive a special promotional code for a 20% discount on select merchandise at NFLShop.com (some restrictions apply). After the game, gear up for next season with a new jersey of your favorite player!

Google Offers in development to challenge GroupOn and LivingSocial

2011-01-24T02:55:00.000-08:00

Marissa Mayer Google is developing a local coupon service similar to Groupon.

Like Groupon , the service, Google Offers, will offer time-limited deals from local vendors, such as restaurants. Nine dollars, for example, might buy $22 worth of food at a local eatery.

"Google is communicating with small businesses to enlist their support and participation in a test of a pre-paid offers/vouchers program,"

said Google Inc. spokesman Nate Tyler.

Google would not say when Offers would be available or provide any more details about its plans.

While Groupon is Google's most obvious competitor when it comes to offering local deals, the field of coupon sites has rapidly grown to include sites such as LivingSocial and Tippr. Flash sales site Gilt Groupe and the newsletter DailyCandy also offer local deals.

Google has signaled it wants to expand in local advertising. Last year, it promoted Marissa Mayer (pictured), who oversaw the company's core search products to grow the company's geographic and local services business, and gave her a seat on the company's operating committee of top decision-makers.

The company also has reportedly tried to enter the local deals business by buying prominent companies in the field. Last year, Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., reportedly considered acquiring Yelp for more than $500 million. And last month, it reportedly tried to buy Groupon for somewhere between $5 billion and $6 billion, but was rejected. Groupon has since raised an additional $950 million in venture capital funding.

Currently, Google's Places service lets local businesses set up pages where the owners can post photos and other promotional information, and customers can write reviews. Then, these places can appear as pinpoints on Google's popular map network, Google Maps.

An analogy from raandom.com

2011-01-22T02:10:00.000-08:00

Turned this into a pictorial from a tweet of an individual from LinkedIn. A simplified tongue in cheek post of the differences of the main social media sites!
Guest post Raandom.com - see others here

Twitter= I need to pee.

Facebook= I peed!

Foursquare= I'm peeing here

Quora= Why am I peeing?

Youtube= Watch this pee!

LinkedIn= I pee well

Current Top 10 on Random Humour

Horoscope - the most common horoscope words

2011-01-20T06:11:00.000-08:00

This analysis was brought to our attention by the tweet of the CEO of foursquare @dens.
If you look through the most common words posted on the various horoscopes you will see that the regularity of the words across all 12 star signs are incredibly similar. Horoscoped – the most common horoscope words, visualized. If that’s not proof of meaningless homogeneity, don’t know what is.

(Taxi for Jonathan Cainer and you can shove your 20% discount up your nether orifice.)

TBWA's brain booty and disruptive interestingness across advertising, creative culture and media arts.
Curated by Maria Popova, editor of Brain Pickings.

Coupon Social Marketing Round up - via techcrunch

2011-01-13T09:56:00.000-08:00

Living Social has acquired LetsBonus
Social commerce startup LivingSocial this morning announced that it has acquired a majority stake in Europe’s Let’s Bonus The partnership brings LivingSocial operations to a total of ten countries, with the addition of Let’s Bonus’ Spain, Italy, Portugal, Argentina and Mexico presences. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

LivingSocial says it now boasts more than 16 million subscribers, is live in more than 170 markets, and is projected to book in excess of $500 million in revenue in 2011.

Launched in September 2009 in Barcelona, Let’s Bonus was one of the first European companies to ride the group buying wave. The startup offers daily deals with discounts of up to 70% on activities like gourmet dinners, luxury spas and romantic escapes.

Let’s Bonus has a team of more than 200 employees and now has offices in Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia, Rome, Milan, Lisbon, Buenos Aires and Mexico.

Last year, LivingSocial acquired adventure company Urban Escapes, and launched three new verticals including LivingSocial Escapes, a travel site that offers savings on curated adventures, LivingSocial Family Edition and Campus Deals. In addition, LivingSocial has expanded its reach in Australia with a controlling stake in Jump On It.

Expansion though acquisition or entire companies and majority stakes of course mirrors the way rival Groupon is planting its flags all over the world as well, so this move takes the competition between both group buying sites global.
LivingSocial has raised $232 million in funding to date, most recently securing a $175 million round from Amazon.

Article from techcrunch

Premier League Location stats - North West is strongest region

2011-01-10T09:03:00.000-08:00

And if you know your history!!

Altogether 23 clubs have been champions of the top division , from a total of 17 towns and cities. Most teams have come from Liverpool, Manchester or London. Liverpool leads the way as a city with 27 wins followed by a combined Manchester of 20 wins.

The even more staggering statistic is that of the 112 titles won 54 of them have been won by North West teams - the nearest region to rival this is London with 19.The only region without a top flight winner is the South West.

The Football League was founded in 1888, with Preston North End winning the first title. The Football League, which was renamed the First Division upon expansion of the league in 1892, remained the highest division of the English football league system until 1992 when the Premier League was founded.

Town or city	Number of titles	Clubs
Liverpool	27	Liverpool (18), Everton (9)
Manchester	20	Manchester United (18), Manchester City (2)
London	19	Arsenal (13), Chelsea (4), Tottenham Hotspur (2)
Birmingham	8	Aston Villa (7), West Bromwich Albion (1)
Sunderland	6	Sunderland (6)
Sheffield	5	Sheffield Wednesday (4), Sheffield United (1)
Newcastle	4	Newcastle United (4)
Leeds	3	Leeds United (3)
Blackburn	3	Blackburn Rovers (3)
Huddersfield	3	Huddersfield Town (3)
Wolverhampton	3	Wolverhampton Wanderers (3)
Derby	2	Derby County (2)
Burnley	2	Burnley (2)
Preston	2	Preston North End (2)
Portsmouth	2	Portsmouth (2)
Ipswich	1	Ipswich Town
Nottingham	1	Nottingham Forest

Here is the regional information which shows just how dominant the North West has been. (League titles by club in brackets).

Region	Number of titles	Clubs
North West	54	Liverpool (18), Manchester United (18), Everton (9), Blackburn Rovers (3), Burnley (2), Manchester City (2), Preston North End (2)
London	19	Arsenal (13), Chelsea (4), Tottenham Hotspur (2)
Yorkshire and Humber	11	Sheffield Wednesday (4), Leeds United (3), Huddersfield Town (3), Sheffield United
West Midlands	11	Aston Villa (7), Wolverhampton Wanderers (3), West Bromwich Albion
North East	10	Sunderland (6), Newcastle United (4)
East Midlands	3	Derby County (2), Nottingham Forest
South East	2	Portsmouth (2)
East of England	1	Ipswich Town
South West	–	Who are ya?

Facebook vs Twitter Infographic

2010-12-21T05:57:00.000-08:00

Better results for brands than facebook
This is a fascinating graphic for those who like to learn more about the demographics of facebook and twitter. The 2 giants in Social networking has some very different results.

Source : Digital Surgeons( cool name )
Brad McCarty.

Though fewer people follow brands on Twitter than on Facebook, those who follow on Twitter are nearly 18 percent more likely to purchase something from that brand than those who follow a brand on Facebook.

Cityville

2010-12-17T08:19:00.000-08:00

Here is a brief excerpt from techcrunch about one of the latest games sweeping the internet via the facebook platform! The Sims generation is now social!

Late last week, Zynga launched CityVille, its latest flagship title that’s sure to draw millions of rabid fans.

The game represents Zynga’s entry into the very popular (and already-crowded) city-building genre, which also includes Digital Chocolate’s Millionaire City, and competing titles from Playfish, Crowdstar, and Playdom.

But Zynga’s got this down to a science, and its late start hasn’t kept CityVille from quickly gaining a ton of users.

Zynga reports that in the game’s first 24 hours, over 290,000 people played CityVille. That’s more than double the 116,000 that Zyngas last title, FrontierVille, saw in its first 24 hours. And FrontierVille is no slouch — it’s now at 6.5 million players a day, with 29,872,423 monthly active users. Zynga says CityVille is its biggest launch to date.

Top Twitter Trends 2010 - World Cup dominated the twitterverse!

2010-12-14T15:48:00.000-08:00

Twitter Trends 2010

Guest post PocketInfo.net

Two Natural disasters, two movies , the World Cup, technology and Justin Bieber topped the 2010 twitter charts!

Top 10 Trends Overall

1. Gulf Oil Spill
2. FIFA World Cup
3. Inception
4. Haiti Earthquake
5. Vuvuzela
6. Apple iPad
7. Google Android
8. Justin Bieber
9. Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows
10. Pulpo Paul

My guess is only Justin Bieber and some Apple or Google product will make the list in 2011!

Give Blood and unlock a badge

2010-12-06T16:30:00.000-08:00

This is a good badge to unlock. At the moment it is only available for American Red Cross Donors.
But i'm sure if you've given blood elsewhere and want to let people know just shout ...

Donation Red Cross

Foursquare one of the 31 Technology Pioneers chosen by the World Economic Forum for 2011

2010-12-06T14:58:00.000-08:00

World Economic Forum picks its 11th annual Pioneers of Technology Location based social network foursquare has been chosen as one of the global 31 companies to watch in 2011 as promoted by the World Economic Forum.

There are 3 main categories and foursquare is placed quite neatly in the Information Technology and new media category. See the full listings below.

Note:18 of the 31 companies picked are from the USA.

CLEAN TECH
Digital Lumens, USA
Ecovative Design, USA
Ferrate Treatment Technologies, USA
Flexoresearch Group, Thailand
Novacem, United Kingdom
On-Ramp Wireless, USA
OPOWER, USA
Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies, Canada
Quintas Renewable Energy Solutions, Nigeria
TaKaDu, Israel
Tendril, USA
Topell Energy, Netherlands
Transonic Combustion, USA

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES AND NEW MEDIA
Aster Data, USA
Atlassian, Australia
foursquare, USA
GetJar, Lithuania/USA
Knewton, USA
Layar, Netherlands
NetQuin Mobile, People's Republic of China
OpenDNS, USA
ReputationDefender, USA
Scribd, USA
SecondMarket, USA
Spotify, United Kingdom
Vortex Engineering, India

LIFE SCIENCES AND HEALTH
Adimab, USA
Ion Torrent, USA
Medicine in Need (MEND), South Africa
Molecular Partners, Switzerland
Neuronetics, USA

Wikileaks ; some of the fallout starts to stick

2010-11-28T16:34:00.000-08:00

WikiLeaks is sure to dominate diplomatic minds over the next few weeks! Guest post from sister site PocketInfo.
Author : Robert Latchford

Several newspapers around the world have decided to release some of the content from the 250,000 documents released by the Wikileaks site. ( The Guardian in the UK , Der Spiegel in Germany and the New York Times in the US) .

US diplomats are scrambling fervently to protect the US from the fallout but with technology the way it is today there will be hundreds of thousands of articles across the web well before this day is out.

This is one of the major problems of the Information Age! The speed at which information travels has fundamentally changed the world that we live in.

Twitter will no doubt be trending very heavily on some of the admissions. Some of the highlights will include these 'allegations' ... (use hash tag #cablegate to see all the comments on twitter)

Saudi Arabia - One of the most damaging allegations was that Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah    repeatedly urged America to attack Iran.The Saudi leader was recorded as having “frequently exhorted the US to attack    Iran to put an end to its nuclear weapons programme”. The leak said he told the Americans to “cut off the head of the snake” at a    meeting in 2008. The leaks also disclose how leaders in Saudi Arabia, the    United Arab Emirates and Egypt referred to Iran as “evil” and a power that    “is going to take us to war”.

Pakistan - Grave fears in Washington and London over the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme, with officials warning that as the country faces economic collapse, government employees could smuggle out enough nuclear material for terrorists to build a bomb.

China - How the hacker attacks which forced Google to quit China in January were orchestrated by a senior member of the Politburo who typed his own name into the global version of the search engine and found articles criticising him personally.

Russia & Italy - The extraordinarily close relationship between Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, which is causing intense US suspicion. Cables detail allegations of "lavish gifts", lucrative energy contracts and the use by Berlusconi of a "shadowy" Russian-speaking Italian go-between.

Afghanistan - Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government, with one cable alleging that vice president Zia Massoud was carrying $52m in cash when he was stopped during a visit to the United Arab Emirates. Massoud denies taking money out of Afghanistan.

Russia - Allegations that Russia and its intelligence agencies are using mafia bosses to carry out criminal operations, with one cable reporting that the relationship is so close that the country has become a "virtual mafia state".

United Kingdom - Devastating criticism of the UK's military operations in Afghanistan by US commanders, the Afghan president and local officials in Helmand. The dispatches reveal particular contempt for the failure to impose security around Sangin – the town which has claimed more British lives than any other in the country.

Saudi Arabia & Yemen - The cables names Saudi donors as the biggest financiers of terror groups, and provide an extraordinarily detailed account of an agreement between Washington and Yemen to cover up the use of US planes to bomb al-Qaida targets. One cable records that during a meeting in January with General David Petraeus, then US commander in the Middle East, Yemeni president Abdullah Saleh said: "We'll continue saying they are our bombs, not yours."

France & Iran - The leaked memos also disclose how American diplomats compared Iran’s    President Ahmedinejad with Adolf Hitler and labelled France’s President    Nicolas Sarkozy as the “emperor with no clothes”.

Germany & Russia - In various cables from the US embassies the German Chancellor Angela Merkel was depicted as “risk aversive”, while the    Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin was an “alpha dog”.

Key figures:

15, 652 secret
101,748 confidential
133,887 unclassified
Iraq most discussed country – 15,365 (Cables coming from Iraq – 6,677)
Ankara, Turkey had most cables coming from it – 7,918
From Secretary of State office - 8,017

According to the US State Departments labeling system, the most frequent subjects discussed are:

External political relations – 145,451
Internal government affairs – 122,896
Human rights – 55,211
Economic Conditions – 49,044
Terrorists and terrorism – 28,801
UN security council – 6,532

There is so much that goes on in the background that 'joe public' doesn't know about as countries position themselves with and against each other to secure natural resources , business deals etc. Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has put in motion an unstoppable force. The WikiLeaks site was being heavily targetted by a cyber attack yesterday and the virtual flames will continue for many months.

FTOPS

Geocaching and foursquare users

2010-11-19T16:11:00.000-08:00

Geocaching was around a longtime before foursquare. Out of interest how many people in the foursquare community have also tried geocaching? My guess is the number is quite high.

Geocaching...

Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment.

Technology Watch - RFID

2010-11-19T03:43:00.000-08:00

What is RFID? - Watch this animation to find out.

Industry round up - Acquistions to watch!

2010-11-15T15:57:00.000-08:00

Google has made 40 acquisitions in 2010

Recent news that Google has made no fewer than 40 acquisitions so far this year highlights the fact that 2010 is turning out be the year of frantic surges in mobile business mergers and take-overs, reports Christopher Backeberg...

As reported in thewherebusiness...

In the case of cash-fat Google, the company has bought more businesses and paid more for them in total than in the entire five-year period leading up to 2010.

The company has clearly stated its intention to continue on the buying path. Google CEO Eric Schmidt has commented: "We're at least on a path of one [acquisition] per month and we should expect that to continue."
Several trends emerge from the large number of acquisitions that have taken place this year:

The rate at which business are buying other businesses is increasing, with more in most months than in the previous month - and there is no sign that this feeding frenzy is abating
The greatest number and value of acquisitions are generally being recorded by big companies such as Google, Apple and Nokia - while this is to be expected, it indicates significant consolidations as big players absorb smaller ones
Less well publicised take-overs, notably in the manufacturing arena, may be fewer in number but may also generate much bigger selling prices - billions of dollars, not just dozens of millions
Many of the take-overs and buy-outs appear to have been motivated by the desire to diversify into new areas - thus we have content providers buying ad agencies, operators buying location-based services and social networks, and so on

Events in 2009 contributed considerably to the current spate of acquisitions.
What triggered the takeovers
There were two main types of factors that gave rise to the 2010 hunt for companies to buy. One of these causes was inevitable and the other came something like a bolt out of the blue.
The inevitable trigger was the continuing and rapid advance of mobile technology. It became clear that 4G technology was on the way, but not everyone involved had done all the necessary preparation to meet the anticipated demands that consumers might place on the next-gen mobile services. A number of manufacturing and technical companies seemed to wake up to the need to develop or upgrade their hardware and systems. They went shopping for suitable subsidiaries and opened up their cheque books.
The big surprises that caught the mobile industry off guard came mostly from Google. First, in September last year, it announced its intention to compete in mobile advertising in a very big way by buying AdMob for three-quarters of a billion dollars. A month later Google sent tremors through the navigation market by launching its free Google Maps Navigation.
The industry was more aware of other trigger events but not always quick to respond to them. Today, however, anyone who looks at the phenomenal growth of Apple's App Store will know there is massive competition to be top of the class with any type of app. One way to get there is to buy an expert, specialist company with a track record - or at least clear potential - in the development of the most popular types of apps.
A spur to acquisitions that cannot be underestimated is the rise and further rise of mobile social networks. With the addition of a location-based element, exemplified by Foursquare, MyTown and Gowalla, it became obvious that location-based marketing had to take social networks seriously... so much so, indeed, that we now have Facebook Places with its potential to reach half a billion users globally.
To help put the present buying trend in perspective, here's a selection of who's bought whom in different mobile sectors. We don't try to pretend this list is comprehensive - we'd probably need to open a new website just for that purpose. Nor do we claim that we've looked at all of the most important or influential acquisitions, which would be a subjective selection anyway. Rather, we've picked out examples that illustrate the wide range of buying activity that's been happening this year.
Focus on navigation

Garmin acquired Belanor, the distributor of Garmin's automotive, outdoor recreation, fitness and marine products in Norway. The company was renamed Garmin Norge but will retain its management, sales, marketing and supporting staff.

NAVTEQ bought NAVKEY, provider of digital map data for the PND market in Argentina. The acquisition provides NAVTEQ with full use of and rights to NAVKEY's digital map assets licensed under the NAVIAR brand.

Apple bought Poly9, a mapping company based in Canada. Poly9 has worked with large organisations including Microsoft, Yahoo!, the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) and MSNBC.

Nokia bought MetaCarta, a geographic intelligence solutions provider, but held on to it for only a few months before selling it to US-based Qbase Holdings.

Destia sold its real-time traffic information service unit, Destia Traffic, to Mediamobile. Destia Traffic's operations were transferred to Mediamobile as Mediamobile Nordic. Mediamobile has been working on the development of pan-European services.

Focus on location
Trimble bought Terralite from Novariant to expand the Trimble portfolio of location and positioning solutions. The Terralite XPS location technology is a scalable infrastructure that generates signals for real-time positioning to augment existing GPS coverage.

TeleCommunication Systems (TCS), a provider of mission-critical wireless communications, bought Networks In Motion for $170 million. The acquisition accelerates TCS's position in enabling mobile operators to offer enhanced location-based data services.

Focus on location-based services
Harman International Industries acquired Aha Mobile, a provider of on-demand mobile and location-based Internet content services. Aha Mobile is a pioneer in converting web-based content to streaming mobile radio.

Quiksee was acquired by Google. Israel-based Quiksee focuses on creating location-based interactive videos that enable viewers to take virtual tours of cities and buildings.

Facebook bought NextStop, a travel recommendation service. Facebook described the purchase as an opportunity for some of the ideas behind NextStop to reach Facebook's massive audience.

Yahoo! extended its social, mobile and local offerings with the acquisition of Koprol, an aggregator of data at city level.

Plink was acquired by Google and will focus its development activities on Google Goggles. Plink develops visual search engines that enable users to find out more about something by taking a photo of it.
Focus on mobile search and marketing

Yahoo! announced plans to buy the Dapper online advertising agency. Industry analysts speculated that the deal would be worth $20 million to $30 million. The purchase was viewed as a move by Yahoo! to improve its competitiveness against Google in the market for search-based advertising.

Apple, which bought the Quattro Wireless ad network last year for $275 million, decided to close Quattro and concentrate on its own iAd service.

Google announced that its Internet ad service, DoubleClick, had acquired ad technology company Invite Media for a reported price of $70 million. Earlier, just after making the deal to buy AdMob for $750 million, Google bought another display ad company, Teracent.

Opera Software purchased AdMarvel, enabling Opera to expand its portfolio of products and services to include highly scalable ad monetisation services for its branded mobile products and services offered by mobile operators and content partners.

Mobile advertising solutions company Amobee Media Systems agreed to acquire mobile ad agency RingRing Media, bringing Amobee one step closer to fulfilling its long-term vision of creating the industry's biggest mobile advertising exchange.

Focus on mobile social networks
AOL acquired Rally Up, a mobile app developer whose products include the Rally Up location-based social network.

Aloqa was acquired by Motorola and joined the Motorola Mobility business, which is expected to be spun-off from Motorola Inc in the first quarter of 2011. Aloqa's technologies and services use the user's context (location, identity and social relationships) to proactively inform them of places, events, bargains and other opportunities.

After less than a year in business, Hot Potato was bought by Facebook. Hot Potato had built up a base of dedicated users with an appetite for socialising around activities and live events.
Focus on software

SAP America and California-based Sybase agreed to merge. SAP is the market and technology leader in business management software. Sybase will operate as a stand-alone unit under the name: Sybase, an SAP company, delivering enterprise and mobile software to manage, analyse and mobilise information for business intelligence.

Research In Motion (RIM) acquired mobile infrastructure software company Cellmania to strengthen RIM's focus on mobile content and the BlackBerry ecosystem. RIM also agreed to buy QNX Software Systems from Harman International to strengthen QNX penetration in the automotive market.

Alcatel-Lucent's acquisition of ProgrammableWeb was seen as a cost-effective way for the company to enter the app development space. It has the resources to scale the ProgrammableWeb system and also add new capabilities and marketing.

Twitter bought Cloudhopper, a provider of messaging software and infrastructure. Twitter had been struggling with scale since its user base passed the 100 million mark, and Cloudhopper was expected to give Twitter much-needed capacity to deal with latency and downtime. Twitter also acquired Tweetie, an iPhone Twitter client that was renamed Twitter for iPhone.

Nokia undertook to acquire 100% of the outstanding shares of Chicago-based Novarra, the provider of a mobile browser and service platform.

Focus on hardware
Broadcom reached a deal to buy Beceem Communications, a maker of chips for 4G LTE and WiMAX devices. According to Broadcom, acquiring Beceem's engineering team and technology would help Broadcom get 4G chips to market sooner. Earlier, Broadcom acquired Innovision Research & Technology, a specialist in short-range data communication.

Intel bought Infineon's wireless solutions unit for $1.4 billion. With Infineon's technology added to its own, Intel will be able to market chips with embedded cellular connectivity. This is expected to help Intel compensate for its heavy but thus far unsuccessful investment in WiMAX technology.

Nokia Siemens Networks entered into an agreement to acquire the majority of Motorola's wireless network infrastructure assets for $1.2 billion.
Other services
AOL acquired TechCrunch and its network of sites, and also the video syndication platform 5min Media. TechCrunch, the company that owns and operates a global network of websites including MobileCrunch, CrunchGear, TechCrunchIT, GreenTech, TechCrunchTV and CrunchBase.

Nokia signed an agreement to acquire US-based mobile analytics company Motally Inc, whose in-application tracking and reporting is designed to enable developers and publishers to optimise the development of their mobile apps through increased understanding of how users engage.

Google bought Global IP Solutions, a VoIP provider. Global IP Solutions' technology provides high quality, real-time audio and video over an IP network. The company serves application developers, service providers and network equipment vendors.

Apple acquired Siri, gaining voice recognition technology to compete with Google. The acquisition enables Apple to integrate Siri, a virtual personal assistant, in future iPhones and iPads in the US.

Mobclix bought Heartbeat, a cloud-based iPhone sales analytics tool, from Enormego. Mobclix planned to integrate Heartbeat's services into its open marketplace platform and account management solution.

Millennial Media's acquisition of TapMetrics added deep cross-platform mobile analytics capabilities to its existing developer program. Millennial Media focuses on application usage and behaviour. TapMetrics' software suite provides detailed analytics to enable developers to better manage their application sales and revenue.

Websites worth knowing about - GetJar

2010-11-15T06:49:00.000-08:00

GetJar - an App store worth knowing about! GetJar is the world’s second largest app store with over 1 billion downloads to date, second only to the Apple App Store. The company’s key point of difference is its open market approach , which allows GetJar to deliver applications for both feature phones and smartphones across all major platforms such as Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, iPhone and Symbian among others. The company provides more than 75,000 mobile applications to consumers in more than 200 countries. In 2009 GetJar won the Meffy, Tiecon50 and Mobile Excellence awards for its achievements and products.

GetJar is backed by Accel Partners and is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices in the UK and Lithuania.

Euromillion UK Draw - 10 Millionaires to be created tonight

2010-11-12T02:57:00.000-08:00

Image via WikipediaThe National Lottery has made more than 2,500 millionaires over the past 16 years and EuroMillions Millionaire Raffle guarantees at least 52 more millionaires every year.

"This special draw is something players will love - 10 prizes all guaranteed to be won in one night, all in the UK - and more money raised for good causes across the country."

The game is part of the EuroMillions lottery and every ticket features a unique Millionaire Raffle number at the bottom.

To win, players must match the three letters and six numbers with those drawn.

The draw takes place on BBC One at 11.20pm on Friday, November 12, or players can check online at www.national-lottery.co.uk.

We will remember them

2010-11-11T02:52:00.001-08:00

The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month marks the signing of the Armistice, on 11th November 1918, to signal the end of World War One.
At 11 am on 11 November 1918 the guns of the Western Front fell silent after more than four years continuous warfare.

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."

Fourth stanza of 'For the Fallen' by Laurence Binyon (1869 - 1943)
FTOPS

Call of Duty - Black Ops released today globally

2010-11-09T05:36:00.000-08:00

Checked into Blockbuster last night and over 100 gamers had preordered the PS3 or Xbox edition of this game.

12:04 AM

Blockbuster

Other - Entertainment

"Black Ops PS3 go go go"

I really like Modern Warfare and have only played a few levels on Black Ops so far and I'm yet to be convinced there is a Quantum leap of difference between Modern Warfare and Black Ops particularly in multiplayer mode. Here are what other sites are saying...

Call of Duty: Black Ops review round up

Official Xbox Magazine UK - “Black Ops could have easily cracked under the enormous pressure to deliver given the unusual circumstances but deliver is exactly what Treyarch has done. When all is said and done, this is the 'proper' Call of Duty fans have been waiting for..” - 9/10
Eurogamer - "The results are never less than entertaining whatever you choose to do, then, but not exactly brave and bold either. Say what you like about No Russian - at least it was something different. ." - 8/10
IGN - "Whether extensive customisation options and inspirational multiplayer makes up for the ragged single player portion is sure to be a subject of controversy in the weeks and months ahead. Maybe next time we'll get the full package..." - 8.5/10
Videogamer - "Black Ops offers its own thoroughly enjoyable romp through some entertaining set-pieces. I've considered myself a Call of Duty fan for many years, and I've held a deep-seated distrust of Treyarch since Call of Duty 3. No longer." - 9/10
Joystiq - "We may all be competitive, but when games of the caliber of Call of Duty: Black Ops continue to be released, nobody has to lose." - 4/5
Gamereactor - "The singleplayer-mode offers a thrilling storyline, the multiplayer introduces currency and the directing is tighter than a pair of tight jeans in a rainstorm. Bravo!" - 9/10
Kotaku - "This is what video games should be, a confusion of interaction and story-telling, of graphics and camera movement, of play and parable." - Kotaku Editor's Choice

MTV Europe Music Awards 2010

2010-11-08T09:43:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia

2010 MTV Europe Music Award Nominees & (Spoiler Alert) * Winners

Hundreds of foursquare users checked in over the weekend and helped create some of the online buzz about the nominees and eventual winners.

For those that missed it here are the nominations and winners *

Best Pop Category
* Lady Gaga
Usher
Katy Perry
Miley Cyrus
Rihanna

Best Live Act
* Linkin Park
Bon Jovi
Lady Gaga
Muse
Kings of Leon

Best Male
* Justin Bieber
Eminem
Usher
Enrique Iglesias
Kanye West

Best Female
* Lady Gaga
Katy Perry
Miley Cyrus
Shakira
Rihanna

Best New Act
* Ke$ha
B.o.B.
Jason Derulo
Plan B
Justin Bieber

Best Alternative
* Paramore
Gorillaz
Gossip
Vampire Weekend
Arcade Fire

Best Hip Hop
* Eminem
T.I.
Kanye West
Lil Wayne
Snoop Dogg

Best Song
* Bad Romance, Lady Gaga
OMG, Usher
California Gurls, Katy Perry feat. Snoop Dogg
Love the Way You Lie, Eminem feat. Rihanna
Rude Boy, Rihanna

Best Video
* California Gurls, Katy Perry
Kings and Queens, Thirty Seconds to Mars
Telephone, Lady Gaga feat. Beyonce
Prayin', Plan B
Love the Way You Lie, Eminem feat. Rihanna

Best World Stage Performance
* Thirty Seconds to Mars
Green Day
Muse
Katy Perry
Gorillaz
Tokio Hotel

Twitter brings the world closer

2010-11-07T16:05:00.000-08:00

Image via CrunchBase

Here is an excerpt from the Twitter blog and how it can be helpful for research about trends in countries around the world.

Twitter shortens the distance between people and provides access to different
cultures and events around the world that may otherwise remain
contained to a locality. In fact, as this post is being written,
worldwide trending topics include Tweets about a Moscow soccer team, a
Brazilian politician and a Dutch TV show character.

Our rapid worldwide growth means that there are amazing stories emerging
everyday about Twitter use in very different places. While there are
many similarities in usage, we’re watching closely how people in
different countries get value out of Twitter in their own unique ways.

Here are some recent examples of Twitter’s impact around the world:

Brazil
- This year, all three Presidential candidates were tweeting about
their campaign in the first round of the election, and the community responded with their own voice throughout. Time also asked this week: “Why is Twitter so popular in Brazil” and provided insight into service’s impact on mainstream Brazilians.

Chile
- Sign-ups after the earthquake spiked 500% and have continued to grow
since. Last week, the world united in their support and relief to see
the Chilean miner rescue. We even saw Tweets from the president himself.

China - The wife of Nobel Peace Prize winner, Liu Xiaobo, is under house arrest but has a Twitter account. Recent commentary from a Beijing media critic says that Twitter is promoting subtle social progress in China.

Ecuador - The president declared a state of emergency via Twitter during
civil unrest after days of protests by the federal police. Leaders
around the world responded openly with Tweets of support for solidarity
and democracy.

Haiti - Twitter use played a critical role in crisis response after the earthquake this year, which also lead our mobile team to build a new feature called Fast Follow to allow people to follow sources via regular mobile phones without creating an account.

India
- There are five times as many users in India as there were a year ago,
a growth fueled by usage from high-profile users like Bollywood stars, politicians and cricket players.

Japan
- Outside of the United States, more Tweets come from Japan than any
other country. The high-level of mobile connectivity there plays a big
role and, according the the Associated Press, Twitter “tapped into a greater sense of individuality in Japan.”

Nigeria - We are seeing increasing usage of Twitter across Africa, especially in larger populations such as Nigeria. In fact, news of a bomb explosion a few weeks ago broke on Twitter helping people avoid affected areas.

Russia
- When President Medvedev started an account at Twitter HQ, we saw 300%
growth in sign-ups the next day and have seen steady growth in activity
and high-profile Russian use ever since.

South Korea - Twitter accounts have doubled since June when a "go and vote" campaign spread online and the office of the president began tweeting in hopes of creating better communication with voters.

US Mid Term Badge

2010-11-02T19:08:00.000-07:00

Don't forget to check in and unlock your I Voted badge.
My guess is the key word is 'Voted' so check in and be creative with a check in announcing your vote to your foursquare friends.

Halloween Badge released by foursquare

2010-10-29T15:09:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween

Just managed to download this badge today. One of the foursquare community shouted in my timeline when I was checking in and made me aware of the latest badge released by the good folk at foursquare.
You'll have to use your common sense on how to download it - anyone struggling can contact me on twitter by DM @foursquaretips

Nashville to host Mumford & Sons - Grimey's

2010-10-22T09:28:00.000-07:00

Nashville bound 1st Nov 2010

Sigh no More!
Mumford and Sons are playing Nashville

Here is a post snagged from the Nashvillest blog

Wanted to go to the Mumford & Sons show at War Memorial Auditorium on November 1, but didn’t manage to snag tickets before they sold out? This news will be music to your ears – We’ve just learned that Grimey’s is saving the day yet again, hosting the boys from across the pond for a free in-store performance on Monday, November 1 at 5:30pm.
This probably goes without saying, but we’ll say it anyway: Get there early! Unless you’re a brand-new Nashvillian, you know that Grimey’s is tiny, and an in-store like this will fill up quickly. We’re big Mumford & Sons fans here at Nashvillest, so we’ll be staking out spots in line along with the best of you.

Grimey's

1604 8th Ave S
btw Alloway & Argyle
Nashville, TN 37203
(615) 254-4801

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local music,
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vinyl,
concert ticket sales,
record store,
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awesomeness,
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4th Annual Mashable Awards - voting now open

2010-10-15T10:04:00.000-07:00

4th Annual Mashable Awards - voting now open

Here are the guidelines from Mashable.

There are a total of 21 categories, so we encourage you to not only vote across all categories, but we encourage you to vote once a day per category.
Below are the categories or feel free to email/share information about the Open Web Awards and use our Promote tools. Promote your vote now!

Want to come to the Mashable Awards Gala?

Date: Thursday, January 6, 2011 (during International CES Convention week)

Time: 7:00 - 10:00 p.m. PT

Location: Cirque du Soleil Zumanity, New York New York Hotel, Las Vegas

Agenda: Networking, Open Bars, Acts, Surprises and the Mashable Awards Gala presentations

Tickets - apply here

Gitex starts this Sunday -

2010-10-14T10:20:00.000-07:00

ILooking forward to getting back to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates this time with the opportunity to geotag some of the huge structures. Will be writing a few tips about Dubai on the foursquare app and here on this blog.

What are the dates for GITEX TECHNOLOGY WEEK 2010?
17 - 21 October 2010.

Where is GITEX TECHNOLOGY WEEK held?
Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre (DICEC)
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
What are the opening times?

Sunday 17 October	1pm - 7pm
Monday 18 October	10am - 7pm
Tuesday 19 October	10am - 7pm
Wednesday 20 October	10am - 7pm
Thursday 21 October	10am - 5pm

Need a hotel? 354 Hotels Available in Dubai - United Arab Emirates

Information At A Glance

Station opening times:	Saturday to Thursday 6am to 11pm Friday 2pm to midnight
Ticket:	To travel on the Metro you need to buy a Nol Card or a Nol Ticket. For more information on Nol Cards and where you can purchase these please log on to: www.nol.ae
Metro guide:	http://www.rta.ae/dubai_metro/english/home.html

Dubai also has a huge fleet of metered taxis that provide a popular and inexpensive way to get around the city. Visit www.rta.ae to find out more about travelling in Dubai from the Roads & Transport Authority.

United Arab Emirates

www.PocketInfo.Net
'In your pocket'

Capital - Abu Dhabi

Largest City - Dubai

Population - 6m

Area - 83,600 sq km

Currency - Dirham (UAE)

Language - Arabic

GDP - $185bn USD

Arable as % of total land - v low <2%

Drive on the - right
Calling Code - +971
Internet TLD - .ae
HDI - Ranked 35th (.903)
Hard Rock Cafes - Dubai
Book a Hotel in the UAE - United Arab Emirates

foursquare community shout outs - Chris Jacobs @FoursquareHelp

2010-10-14T04:56:00.000-07:00

Ever stuck with a foursquare issue? Then here is someone to follow to help with that problem - Chris Jacobs

Foursquare Help

@FoursquareHelp view full profile →

Indianapolis, IN

The #1 source for Foursquare News & Support | Guaranteed Response for every Support Issue | Tweets by @chrisjacobs7 (not by @foursquare) http://4sqindy.east44.com/category/foursquare-help/

Get ready for Christmas - Just Kidz Toys under $20 10/10-10/16

NEW! Playstation Move now available at Kmart.com 10/10-12/31

Baltimore trending - Conan Badges are getting unlocked!

2010-10-13T15:21:00.000-07:00

Conan Blimpspotter

You’ve spotted The Conan Blimp! A big orange bag of slow moving gas has never looked so pretty. Visit www.teamcoco.com for more Conan!

Unlocked by Jason H. on Wed Oct 13, 2010 at 3:29 PM @ The Conan Blimp in Blimpin, US.

Baltimore Hotels

Conan Blimp Badge

2010-10-11T15:42:00.000-07:00

A BLIMP? That's Right!

Conan is taking comedy to new heights October 1-31. "Where? Why?" you ask, "And how can I get in on that action?" Man, you sure have a lot of questions... Find out below, friends, and enjoy the ride!

Blimp Schedule

~~Oct 06 - Philadelphia, PA~~
~~Oct 09 - New York, NY~~
~~Oct 14 - Baltimore, MD~~
Oct 18 - New York, NY
Oct 22 - Hartford, CT
Oct 23 - Providence, RI
Oct 24 - Boston, MA
Oct 28 - TBD

Conan Badge

If you unlock this badge drop a note on this link - would be great to see how close you have to be to unlock this one!

Superswarms planned for other locations - Milano sets a date

2010-10-11T05:18:00.000-07:00

SuperSwarm Milano

After a bitter sweet week for the foursquare community in the UK we can now see other communities in other cities and towns around the world looking to unlock the SuperSwarm badge.

Cheltenham gallantly tried and failed to unlock the SuperSwarm badge and this was predominantly due to demographics , timing and a competing event in London that achieved its goal in unlocking the badge 2 days earlier.

This morning Milano in Italy has set itself a date to unlock the badge for the Italian community.
As you can see from my earlier post about the London event Chris Pearson did a fantastic job in creating a buzz to get enough people from the community to attend the event but the event itself fell flat for me due to reasons I have already posted.

If anyone from the community wants events promoted please let me know either by posting a comment on this thread or by sending a DM or comment mentioning @foursquaretips on twitter.

SuperSwarm Milano

SSM 12/11/2010

Arco Della Pace, Milano
Corso Sempione
Milano, Italy 20154

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Superswarm London

2010-10-07T18:43:00.000-07:00

Hope Cheltenham makes it a more interactive experience

First of all thanks to Chris and the crew for organising the event.
I tweeted it was a pretty meh! event as my experience was not the best.
At 7.20 I arrived got given the voucher, interacted with one of the organisers outside, entered the bar and was promptly told by a very rude barman that the free drink voucher was null and void and they weren't taking them anymore walking off without giving me a chance to 'cough' pay for a drink. The music was blearing throughout the bar and people were shouting like they do on that Fosters Ad (below) so I thought - fuck it - I'll go somewhere else where I can talk to people and interact.

I was meeting up with 3 other people a bit later in the night at the Jewel venue so after heading down to the Sports cafe and mixing with some people down there I headed back up to Jewel where many smaller groups had moved off and were creating trending spots around the city.

2 tips to other cities like Jakarta , Sydney , Paris , Auckland -
1) wear your foursquare or twitter id (on a badge which the organiser can write on a white sticker) on entry to the building so you can interact with people.
2) Choose a location where the volume of the music doesn't kill off the interaction of the guests attending.

My guess is a lot of foursquare people would have checked in - got their badge and then went elsewhere as it was just the wrong setting for a proper interactive event. I am sure dozens enjoyed it but I am also sure dozens went off into the London night discovering bars like De Hems which was trending heavily around 7.54pm.

10/10 for effort and enthusiasm

5/10 for choice of venue

1/10 for volume of music
Score 16/30

Griffin Black FlexGrip for iPad

Good luck Cheltenham - hope you are able to unlock the badge at your event.

NEW! Playstation Move now available at Kmart.com 10/10-12/31

Hotels near Piccadilly London

London SuperSwarm Attempt on tonight

2010-10-07T04:45:00.000-07:00

A Big shoutout goes to Chris Pearson for organizing this event in London tonight.As Chris says the event should be fun but only getting 249 check ins would be seen as a failure so try and bring along a few people if at all possible. Here is the key information
The venue is Jewel Piccadillyat 4 - 6 Glasshouse Street at Piccadilly Circus. The time to checkin between 6pm and 9pm today at the venue

There will be WIFI - the SSID will be 'superswarmLDN' and the password is 'foursquare'
One camera will be given to somebody that checked in to be picked randomly by Kodak
Watch out for @Paul_Clarke uber cool photo guy and get featured in our flickr set
We would love to see some phototweeting on the night please use #superswarmLDN in the tag as I want to catch them all and make some mural type picture of the night
Happy Hour finishes at 8pm at the location so until then everything is half price
There is a free cocktail for all checkins but because of the mass number of people we will give you the voucher at the door when you checkin
There will be people with #superswarmLDN T-shirts on if anybody needs help or just want to chat about our journey
If people could leave lots of tips at the venue - that would be a nice reminder to everybody that the first attempt was here
Accommodation near the venue - Quality Hotels United Kingdom

This is your night and completely organised by the foursquare community and London tech scene to get the superswarm badge without having to go to the USA - this is our own reward.
There are only a few hours left for everybody to communicate about the night and bring along as many people as possible to be part of mobile social history.
Looking forward to seeing you all tonight!

Social Media Tips

2010-10-05T07:31:00.000-07:00

The week ahead should be an interesting one as far as picking up the latest on what is going on in the world of social media.
Businesses and Individuals use interaction with the various social media sites differently. I saw a quote on twitter this week which went something like " Facebook is where you lie to your friends and Twitter is where you are frankly honest to complete strangers" Not sure if it was Stephen Fry but it shows some interesting insights into the way people use the two platforms.

This morning I was invited to a meeting to discuss the use of foursquare , twitter , googlemaps and linkedin to help increase the awareness of the business centre which I work from.

With your free Google Places account you can:

Be found
Verify your information to make sure people can find you on Google
Stand out
Engage customers with photos, coupons, public responses and more
Get insights
Use info about your listing to make smarter business decisions

They are already doing quite a bit of engagement with various social networking platforms so the focus was mainly on foursquare and Google places. The business centre is a good one - good people , affordable rooms on various contract lengths and well located for the M62 , M56 and M6 motorways. See link below.

I have meetings in London on Thursday and Friday so will be looking to download the SuperSwarm badge on Thursday night. I've only invited one friend as I don't want to be stuck in a corner and not interacting with other people at the event. Here is the link to the London SuperSwarm attempt.
Later this week I will update some more tips on downloading the new batch of foursquare badges that have been released.

CNN Badge

2010-09-30T06:58:00.000-07:00

The CNN Newsroom are halfway through a week-long series dedicated to healthy eating called, “Eatocracy: Mind, Body and Wallet.”

Onions, peppers and pears, oh my!

Let’s face it, eating healthy is not always fun. CNN has joined forces with the location-based social network Foursquare to change that.

Follow CNN at Foursquare.com/CNN and check in at a local farmers market to unlock the special CNN “Healthy Eater” badge.

Eating healthy, local, farm-fresh foods should be fun and rewarding. In addition to being thanked by your body, show the CNN “Healthy Eater” badge to participating farmers markets and the vendor may choose to give you a discount or gift with your purchase.
Farmers markets maintain a special place in many major cities and small towns around America. Find the Union Square Greenmarket nestled between traffic in New York City or bump into Alice Waters picking her tomatoes at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in San Francisco. Probably your favorite farmers market is the one down Main Street, under that bridge and to the left.
Wondering where the nearest farmers market is to you? Don’t worry! The USDA launched a searchable Farmers Market Directory that includes over 6,000 locations in the United States. Even more, there are 10,651 venues across the globe where Foursquare users can unlock the special CNN badge.
Will try and hunt for the global listings - suggest you check in to farm shops and those that are healthy eating spots on the foursquare database.

Tip - Do a search for farmers markets in the foursquare app on your phone to find out where it is - then head to the market and check in to unlock the badge! Corn on the Cob for dinner tonight!

SuperSwarm in London Thursday 7th October 2010

2010-09-29T08:55:00.000-07:00

Super Swarm

50 person foursquare swarms are soooo 2009. We upped it to 250 for the Super Swarm and you still nailed it. Well played!

Various people using foursquare in the UK have been contacting me about getting involved so that UK users of the application can gain their first chance of collecting the SuperSwarm badge. Via Twitter I have received requests to promote both the London and Cheltenham efforts but personally decided to go with London as realistically I believe the user pool will be significantly larger in the Capital. With that in mind I suggested to Chris Pearson to engage with Londonist on foursquare and twitter to help with the promotion and since then Chris has got LDN involved also.

To 'unlock' the SuperSwarm we will need to get 250 users checking in within a 3 hour period at the nominated location.The location chosen is Jewel Bar in Piccadilly .

I will be in London for meetings so I am planning to stay overnight on the 7th and meet up with the foursquare community and bounce some ideas around about geolocation , social networking and emerging technologies.
As part of the evening I wanted to make all the foursquare 'swarmers' aware of this campaign. Swarming for this species may become a thing of the past if more research isn't done into what is actually going on!

bees - the facts

Bees contribute £200m a year to the UK economy through pollination. Examples of foods pollinated by bees.
Bee numbers in the UK have halved over the last 20 years. Last year alone a fifth of bee colonies did not survive the winter.
No-one knows for certain what is causing bee losses. Explanations include: bad weather, pesticides, importing of non native bee species, viruses and a mite called Varroa.
Neonicontinoids are a group of pesticides that have been linked to bee declines elsewhere in Europe. Sign our petition.
There are 44,000 beekeepers in the UK and over 95% are amateur. It’s easier to keep bees than you might think!

Help spread the word
Follow PlanBee on Twitter
Lets keep those virtual swarms going and keep these swarmers from dying out!

New Domain for foursquaretips

2010-09-29T06:45:00.000-07:00

The new domain name for this site is now foursquaretips.info

The old links will still work.

More tips are on their way.....

Nokia World 2010 - foursquare now available in the OVI app store

2010-09-29T03:02:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

News Item :

The official Foursquare app for Symbian-based Nokia smartphones is now available for download from the Ovi app store.

The Finnish mobile manufacturer has officially announced the mobile version of the location-based social networking site Foursquare's application for its app store Ovi, Tech Watch reports.

According to the news, Nokia announced the Foursquare app along with a few new handsets during the Nokia World 2010.

The Foursquare application is similar to the one available for Apple’s iTunes App Store and Google’s Android Marketplace.

The application is compatible with its Symbian version three operating system as well as older versions, including S60 3.2.

Read more: http://www.itproportal.com/portal/news/article/2010/9/29/foursquare-symbian-app-now-available-ovi/#ixzz10uYJAMy1

Wetherspoon's offer in 782 pubs across the UK

2010-09-28T06:59:00.000-07:00

All you need is your phone and the Foursquare App! Then as soon as you walk into your local Wetherspoon, search for it on your phone and check-in! If you are the person who checks into that pub the most then you will become the mayor of your local Wetherspoon.
As mayor of this pub, enjoy 20% off your food order (excluding drinks). Simply show your phone to a member of our staff (remember it has to be the screen which says you’re the mayor), when paying for your meal, to redeem this offer.

782 Locations across the UK.
Reading, Berkshire Mayor spot up for grabs

Apple , Jumptap and Millenial Media gaining Mobile Ad Market Share ( via IDC & Business Insider)

2010-09-28T06:45:00.000-07:00

News Item - abbreviated from Business Insider by Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped

The pie chart at right is somewhat premature, given that it is IDC's best guess -- via Bloomberg Businessweek -- of what the $500 million U.S. mobile advertising market will look three months from now.

But it's an indication of how the winds have shifted. Apple (AAPL), which had 0% share of the market before it bought Quattro Wireless in January and launched iAd in June, will end the year at 21%, according to IDC.
Where did that share come from? Chiefly from Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO), Microsoft (MSFT) and Nokia (NOK), according to the Businessweek piece.

IDC's before-and-after numbers for the biggest losers below the fold.

	Dec. 2009	Dec. 2010
Google	27%	21%
Yahoo	12%	9%
Microsoft	10%	7%
Nokia	5%	2%

. . .
[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]

Auckland Mayor Party

2010-09-27T00:07:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

Auckland - Foursquare Mayors SkyCity Hotel have 1 nights accommodation to give away at the Mayor Party! http://www.skycityauckland.co.nz/Hotels/SKYCITY-Hotel.html

Inaugural Auckland Foursquare Mayor Party

Share · Public Event

Time	Wednesday, September 29 · 8:00pm - 10:00pm

Location	twentyone in SKYCITY Auckland

Created By	Auckland - Foursquare Mayors

More Info	If you are Mayor of an Auckland Location on Foursquare then this is a party for you. First round of drinks are on the house.

Aotearoa.biz - Site on Technology and Tourism in New Zealand

Oktoberfest Badge

2010-09-23T16:30:00.000-07:00

follow @foursquaretips

Enjoy Oktoberfest on foursquare with Lufthansa and win fantastic prizes!
You can check-in to locations throughout Oktoberfest in Munich with Lufthansa and foursquare and unlock the Oktoberfest badge. You can also win a flight voucher worth 20 Euro * for your next flight booking on Lufthansa.com. After your third check-in at one of the Oktoberfest badge venues we have picked, you will receive the code for redemption via e-mail!
Make sure to follow us on foursquare in order to unlock the badge! You can do so by clicking on the "Follow" button on this page.
Follow on foursquare
Follow on twitter

Last Minute Hotels for Oktoberfest

More information on Germany >>

www.PocketInfo.Net
"In your pocket"
Capital - Berlin
German Population - 82m
Area - 357,868 sq km
Currency - Euro €
Language - German
GDP - 2.91 trillion (5th )
Arable as % of total land - 34%
Urban Population - 88.1%
Drive on the - right
Calling Code - +49
Internet TLD - .de
HDI - Ranked 22nd (0.947)
EU Accession - TBC
EU Member - Germany
G20 Member - Germany
Hard Rock Cafes - Berlin Cologne Munich

Geographing

2010-09-23T15:56:00.000-07:00

What is Geographing?

· It's a game - how many grid squares will you contribute? ·

· It's a geography project for the people ·

· It's a national photography project ·

· It's a good excuse to get out more! ·

· It's a free and open online community project for all ·

Geograph

~~NextStop~~ had this type of feature before they were acquired by cough! facebook.

Would like to see what plans foursquare has in this image uploading area.

Another monetisation and user extension idea for @dens and co.

Show off your foursquare badges

2010-09-23T01:22:00.000-07:00

These are the badges I have unlocked so far.

Lots of you out there will have your own websites or blogs. Now there is a way to show off your foursquare badges that you have unlocked and help build the foursquare community.
To the right of this post you will see a link to the myfoursquare application that you will need to register for. Once registered you just need to allow access with your foursquare account and as you unlock your badges they get displayed automatically in the widget.

The SuperSwarm badge should be proudly dispalyed soon as London and Cheltenham are having a competition to get the first UK SuperSwarm happening. More on this to follow later this week.

Myfoursquare

Timestamping and how to use it with foursquare

2010-09-22T05:49:00.000-07:00

Image via WikipediaA thought just crept into my mind. I am working from the Stafford services on the M6 northbound and realised to my horror that you only get 2 hours free parking before getting whacked with a hefty parking charge. What is worse if you forget to pay the charge you get a nice surprise in the mail which can be up to a £80-£90 fine.
So to get around this problem when you pull into a service area check in on your foursquare app and allow the backend server to record the local timestamp - in this case it was 11.54 am which means I have until 1.54pm before being hit with the £8.00 minimum parking fee.

The time is now 1.48pm so I have 6 minutes to get out of the carpark , so at this MOTO Services I got free wifi (registration required) , free parking (up to 2 hours) and a refreshed and recharged mind to complete the rest of the journey up the M6 motorway.
Here are the timestamp records.... (in reverse order)

Wednesday September 22, 2010

1:55 PM (exit timestamp after parking just outside the BP forecourt - 60 second drive away from
number plate recognition cameras)

Stafford Services M6 North

Other - Travel [X]

"Sitting at BP station on exit from services - timestamp test"

12:05 PM ( timestamp of checking into the Costa concession inside the services)

Costa Coffee

Click to add a category

"Has a nickname of Costa Lot-te! Like their black shirts with white embroidery- well pukka!"

11:54 AM (timestamp of entry into the carpark controlled by the number plate recognition cameras)

Stafford Services M6 North

Other - Travel [X]

"#mm on a warm wed - Pendulum on the #livelounge"

Timestamping - monetisation ideas for @dens and @naveen
The extension of this timestamping is interesting for foursquare and ways to generate income streams to the service - someone could do a modification of the API to come up with an authorised check in. e.g. a sales representative calling on customers and checking in using the 'stealth or offline' mode - the check in would still be reported to the foursquare back end server and then they have a timestamp of their visit for accounting and management purposes.
There are dozens of variants to this idea and would be happy to discuss them with the foursquare development team or any 3rd party developer using their API.
Timer application that pops up alerting you to check out. This idea could be entered into the foursquare backend but may not work on the iphone but could on the Blackberry. foursquare could create a button next to check in - e.g. 'Alert' Check in - with a drop down menu of times - this alert would then pop back up as an alarm 10 minutes before expiry. Again there are dozens of applications to do with time and place where this could be applied.(Car Parking being a major one).

Indonesia focus - foursquaretips

2010-09-22T05:36:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been making plenty of friends from Indonesia. This is a shout out to them all! I love watching all the interesting check ins scroll up on my blackberry as they go about their daily lives.

foursquare (no caps done on purpose) is a great app to see what others are doing in other geographies and is another way of making the world smaller. I've only been to Jakarta once and that was only for 2 days about 12 years ago. Would love to get back and check in to some of the interesting sites swarming there.

The activity on twitter is frequently showing trending topics from this extremely populace country and many of the people there are very tech savvy. Here is some information from one of my sister sites.

www.PocketInfo.Net
'In your pocket'

Capital - Jakarta
Indonesia Population - 230m (est 2009) Ranked 4th
Area - 1,919,440 sq km Ranked 16th
Currency - Rupiah (IDR)
Language - Indonesian
GDP - 511,765 bn USD
Drive on the - left (tbc)
Calling Code - +62
Internet TLD - .id
HDI - Ranked 111th (0.734)
G20 Member - Indonesia
Hard Rock Cafes - Bali Jakarta Bali Hotel
Hotels - id Indonesia
Great Value Hotels from 3 Star through to 5 Star in Indonesia

Twitter Trends | Indonesia
There is a huge amount of people on Twitter from Indonesia they often have wordwide trending topics particularly around Midday GMT. Trending - "Yang Anak Indonesia" 4th March 2010

Interesting Sites | Indonesia
Indonesia to Go - Click Here

Stay at a Crowne Plaza in Jakarta

Feel free to send me information about foursquare events in Indonesia and I will happily tweet and write about them here and on twitter.

twitter @foursquaretips
foursquare @foursquaretips

Recent Badge releases as catalogued by Tony Felice

2010-09-19T08:18:00.000-07:00

200	Bookworm Bender	Looks like you’re throwing a late night bender at the library. Ain’t no party like a Pythagorean Theorem party!	Active	ASU
201	Quad Squatter	That’s your 10th check-in at the Quad. Either you’re majoring in Botany, or you just gave up on class altogether.	Active	ASU
202	Smells Like School Spirit	Woah! That’s your 5th check-in showing your school pride. You’re a super fan! Now remember to wash off that face paint before you go to bed – huge mistake!	Active	ASU
203	Munchies	That’s 5 check-ins at campus dining halls. You must be a Grilled Cheese connoisseur. You deserve a TV Show!	Active	ASU
204	Campus Explorer	You’ve travelled far and wide to explore every corner of campus – all without getting scurvy. Magellan’s got nothing on you!	Active	ASU
205	PEOPLE Hot Spot	Congrats! You’ve just dipped your fabulously-heeled foot into the ultra-exclusive celebrity world. What’s next – your own reality show?	Active	PEOPLE Magazine
206	PEOPLE VIP	Wait outside the velvet rope? You? No way! You know where to find the hottest parties — it’s just too bad this badge doesn’t come with bottle service.	Active	PEOPLE Magazine
207	2010 VMA Moonman	We’re really happy for you, and we’re gonna let you finish, but that check-in just entered you to win a trip for two to the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards on Sept. 12th! Good Luck and Rock Out!	Active	MTV

foursquaretips - travel watch Denmark

2010-09-19T04:08:00.000-07:00

Last week I went to Copenhagen for some meetings in and around the airport. Here are some interesting facts about this unique country and a few of the check ins encountered at the airport...
Denmark

Capital - Copenhagen
Danish Population - 5.5m (Ranked 108th)
Area - 43,098 (Ranked 134th)
Currency - Danish Krone (DKK)
Language - Danish.
GDP - $340 billion - (ranked 27th)
Drive on the - right
Calling Code - +45
Internet TLD - .dk
HDI - Ranked 16th (.955)
EU Accession -
EU Member - Denmark
Education Index - Rank =1st
Hard Rock Cafes - Copenhagen
Hotels - Copenhagen & Denmark

foursquaretips selected Check Ins

Copenhagen Airport 2279 unique foursquare users have checked in here as of 19th Sept
SAS Lounge - They don't take Priority Pass and you need to be flying business or be a gold star alliance member to use the Lounge.
( A few people have pointed this out on their tips)
Yam Yam - food spot in the airport - Red Thai Curry was great.
Good selection of food still pricey - but hey you are in an airport and in Scandinavia!
Crowne Plaza - waited over an hour to be picked up by the shuttle (miscommunication with the driver and guy at the desk at the hotel) Almost cancelled booking to stay at the Hilton which is attached to Terminal 3. Would have done this but try to be brand loyal and collect the priority points for free hotel stays and cases of wine from the wine club.
Starbucks - there are a few of them in the 3 terminals. I had ordered a Latte then got caught up on a phone call - almost missed the flight and had to sprint to the gate - got there and the plane was delayed!
There is a luke warm Latte left in the seating area of terminal 2.
Fields - Large shopping Mall situated across the motorway from the Crowne Plaza Copenhagen towers - went to the H&M outlet.

Make use of your priority club points in Copenhagen
foursquaretips | Global 500 Companies | in Denmark

Country Rank	Company	Global 500 rank	Revenues ($ millions)	City
1	A.P. Møller-Mærsk Group	106	62,637	Copenhagen
2	Danske Bank Group	236	34,291	Copenhagen

Sunday Million

FTOPS

News Item - Checkins increased 33% from a 1k campaign

2010-09-19T02:50:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

According to a current headline on TechMeme, McDonalds saw a 33% increase in foot traffic to its stores when it ran a promotion during Foursquare Day earlier this year. At that time, the fast food chain offered users who checked into McDonald's a chance to win $5 and $10 gift cards. On the Econsultancy blog, Meghan Keane reports that McDonald's head of social media Rick Wion claims that, "with this one little effort [$1000 in gift cards], we were able to get a 33% increase in foot traffic to the stores." These numbers, however, simply don't add up.

There is clearly some confusion here about the numbers that Wion was talking about. Keane reports that McDonalds saw a 33% increase in check-ins from the day prior to Foursquare day and a 40% increase in check-ins for the week the special ran. Then, however, she goes on to quote Wion as saying that he "was able to go to some of our marketing people -- some of whom had never heard of Foursquare -- and say, 'Guess what. With this one little effort, we were able to get a 33% increase in foot traffic to the stores.'" It seems clear that Wion was talking about check-ins here and misspoke when he claimed that this campaign increased foot traffic by 33%.

Some of our colleagues, however, then took this number and ran with it - after all, a 33% increase in foot traffic to one of the world's largest brands because of one of the most over-hyped social media companies sure sounds like a good story.

Update: Rick Wion confirms that the increase was in check-ins, not foot traffic.

News Item - Metro magazine uses foursquare for its location based news items.

2010-09-17T14:57:00.000-07:00

Image via WikipediaFacebook Places may have expanded to the UK recently but that doesn’t mean that other location services are going to fall over and die overnight. The UK’s free Metro newspaper has announced that it is to publish editorial content to Foursquare.

Journalism.co.uk reports that users will be able to view location-relevant restaurant and film reviews from within Foursquare when they ‘check-in’ nearby. The service is currently only available to users in London.

Looking at the way it’s been implemented, the move is a smart one. Users see an excerpt from the review as a tip and can click through to the site for the full article, driving traffic back to their site.

The move isn’t the first time that a newspaper has hooked up with Foursquare. The Canadian Metro newspaper (unrelated to the UK title) began using Foursquare in a similar way earlier this year.

Despite having only around 3 million users worldwide to date, Foursquare is beginning to make its mark as an experimental marketing tool. Earlier this month Yorkshire becamethe first tourism authority outside the USA to launch an officially branded Foursquare presence.

Rest of article here .... the next web

Travel has been heavy - some branding ideas

2010-09-17T14:47:00.000-07:00

Image via WikipediaThe last few weeks have been pretty heavy with travel so haven't done much on the updating side.
London has been visited a few times and I will geotag some of the Olympic spots as it is only 679 days away to the start on the London Olympics.

@londonpin (twitter) example of an olympics pin limited edition pin.

I think foursquare can grow the brand by having collectable pins which are only obtained from some key locations. ( see londonpin.net )

A good example would be someone who has been to London , New York , Tokyo and Paris.
You could get a tag for the check ins to these prime cities (at a central city landmark) but also get sent a real limited edition copy for the first 100 foursquare users who can prove the physical check in.

I am sure Mari would like to see her designs develop a 3D look and feel. I have losts of other ideas on how foursquare could really grow the whole brand amongst enthusiasts.

Will beef out my thoughts a bit more on this later.

Blog of the week - Ed Parsons

2010-08-31T03:21:00.000-07:00

Ed Parsons is the Geospatial Technologist of Google.
His Blog can be reached here ed parsons

After where, is when the next big thing?

So it seems where is as mainstream as its possible to get with most popular online services rolling location into their products to improve the quality of the service, be that finding friends, the location of interesting restaurants or where is the best place to buy a Nikon camera.
As noted here on previous occasions, it is very easy to become fixated on location as the next big thing, and indeed there is much media coverage of the “battle for place” since the introduction of the Facebook places API, however location is still only one of the numerous contextual signals that make a service valuable.
for rest of blog entry go here...

Beaumaris - foursquaretips travel tips ( North Wales - Isle of Anglesey )

2010-08-23T05:12:00.000-07:00

This is the first of hopefully many places which will be featured on this @foursquaretips blog.

The Royal Borough of Beaumaris is the former county town of the island of Anglesey and is located on the shore of the eastern entrance to the Menai Strait, the tidal waterway separating Anglesey from the coast of North Wales. Anglesey featured quite heavily in the recent Coast series on BBC 2 - a series well worth watching on iplayer if you missed it on the box.

Beaumaris was originally a Viking settlement known as Porth y Wygyr ("Port of the Vikings"), but the town itself began its development in 1295 when Edward I of England, having conquered Wales, commissioned the building of Beaumaris Castle as part of a chain of fortifications around the North Wales coast.

Below are five foursquare links and places you can easily become the Mayor of as it is quite off the beaten track but condensed enough to explore quite a bit in one day.

1 Beaumaris Pier
The Pier has a fantastic range of boating and fishing trips including a short one out to Puffin Island.They also have fishing trips ranging in length from 2 hours to 8 hours.
2 Da Pizza
A very new upmarket Pizza restaurant with a fantastic courtyard area for those sunny days when the wind is up. I created the location as on a search it wasn't in the foursquare database and as it is slightly away from the beach and pier it is not as noticeable as other establishments.Will become a favorite place to visit in North Wales for many 'foodies'.
3 Best Western Bulkeley Hotel
Has a great location looking out to the Menai Strait. Didn't stay in the hotel itself but had a look around and is perfect for a long weekend stay. For other local hotel options go here.
4 Beaumaris Castle
The castle was built on a marsh and that is where it found its name: the French builders called it beaux marais which translates as "beautiful marsh". The actual geotag is slightly out on the foursquare app - will try to get this rectified when I check back in later this week.
5 Red Boat Icecream
This is a quaint little ice-cream parlour in the main street of Beaumaris that as yet has no Mayor! - this is a scandal as the Ice-creams are fantastic and the Coffees are pretty good too!

Geoscocial Universe graphic

2010-08-23T04:40:00.000-07:00

Jesse Thomas of award-winning creative agency Jess3 created a handy visual of the size of the internet’s behemoths—including Skype, Facebook, Yahoo Mail—and new tech companies on the scene like Foursquare and BrightKite. The infographic also includes a visualization of each company’s proportion of users who access the service through a mobile gadget.

This graphic shows the 4.6 billion mobile phone devices and shows how the various applications interface to the web - either via their phone/smartphone or directly via a desktop/laptop/iPad etc. I am not convinced on the overall accuracy of the graphic as it doesn't really show many of the non-english speaking apps like those in China and Japan. However, the graphic is a clear indication of how important mobile devices are in the world now and the one we are moving toward.

current job openings at foursquare

2010-08-19T07:52:00.000-07:00

Current Openings at foursquare

Engineering

Operations

Engineering Recruiter

User Experience & Design

Designer

Zagat upgrades Zagat to go (version 4.0) Now includes foursquare integration

2010-08-19T06:59:00.000-07:00

Image via CrunchBaseZagat has released a major upgrade to Zagat To Go for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. Version 4.0 of the food guide app includes Foursquare integration, Foodspotting photos, and the new Zagat Dining Journal.

Zagat is a well-known restaurant guide that rates restaurants on a 30-point scale that covers food, decor, service, and cost. Zagat To Go packages these reviews into bite-sized morsels for the iPhone and iPad, making it easier to choose where you'd like to dine while on-the-go.

Zagat To Go 4.0 features integration with Foursquare, a location-based social game in which players "check in" at different restaurants and shops and make it easier for friends to meet up. Now, Zagat To Go users with Foursquare accounts can check in to any restaurant right from the Zagat app.

See Rest of article here ....

Google chiefs fears for generation facebook

2010-08-18T05:57:00.000-07:00

From the Independant

Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, has issued a stark warning over the amount of personal data people leave on the internet and suggested that many of them will be forced one day to change their names in order to escape their cyber past.

In a startling admission from a man whose company has made billions by perfecting the art of hoarding, storing and retrieving information on us, Mr Schmidt suggested that the enormous quantity of detail we leave online may not be such a good thing after all.

The man who – alongside Google's founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page – runs the world's largest search engine said that young people will need to go as far as changing their identities if they are to truly erase what they have left online.

"I don't believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time," he told the Wall Street Journal. "I mean we really have to think about these things as a society."

For a man whose company is built on the ability to store information and retrieve it again in a faster and more efficient way than its rivals, Mr Schmidt's admission revealed a surprising concern among Google's leadership over the importance of data privacy.

But it has also provoked a wider debate on the sheer amount of information we give away about ourselves online and how most of that data is virtually un-erasable.

Perhaps more than any other company Google has helped created a world where we willingly deposit vast amounts of personal data into the public domain – information that might previously have taken months of investigative work by professionals to find.

Google has made billions from storing data on its customers' browsing habits so that it can use that data to target them with personalised adverts. It also runs the kind of websites that have pioneered the open sharing of information online. The Californian internet giant owns You Tube, the world's largest video sharing website; it handles billions of our emails through Gmail; and – if you live in a big city – chances are that a Google Street View car has photographed your front door. A series of recent acquisitions also suggests it is hoping to move into the social networking market, the area of the internet that most concerns privacy campaigners.

Thanks to the global popularity of social networking – an estimated 600 million people have personal online profiles – friends, prospective employers and enemies alike are able to access photographs, videos and blogs that we may have long forgotten with a few simple clicks of a mouse. Recently one columnist in The New York Times went so far as to describe our current world as an age defined by "the impossibility of erasing your posted past and moving on".

Many websites yesterday picked up on the apparent disconnect between Mr Schmidt's comments and his company's ethos.

Chris Williams, of the online tech news website The Register, said: "Recording everything and making it knowable by everyone all the time is Google's stated mission, and it is profiting handsomely from the fact that society doesn't understand the consequences."

Other blogs remarked that one previous instance when Mr Schmidt had admitted concerns over the amount of personal information stored online was in 2005 when Google blacklisted the online technology magazine Cnet for an entire year.

In an article discussing privacy concerns generated by Google's data mining capabilities, Cnet's reporters published Mr Schmidt's salary, named the neighbourhood where he lives, some of his hobbies and political donations. All the information had been gleaned from Google searches.

But while bloggers and web forums reacted with tangible scepticism to Mr Schmidt's comments, others welcomed his frankness.

"His comments are a little ironic but they are also timely," said Dylan Sharpe from Big Brother Watch, which has campaigned against Google collecting wifi data on web users while taking photographs with its Street View cars.

He added: "Google is a company that specialises in knowing where you are, what you are doing and who you are talking to. That's a scary prospect even though Google's users sign up to this sort of data collection willingly.

"But Mr Schmidt is completely right on how much information we are giving away online. Right now there are millions of young kids and teenagers who, when they apply for jobs in 10 years' time, will find that there is so much embarrassing stuff about them online that they cannot take down."

Those who wish to delete what they have put up online, meanwhile, may find it next to impossible to entirely erase their cyber past.

"What many people do not realise is that as soon as you put something up online you lose possession and control of that information immediately," said Rik Fergusson, a cyber security expert at Trend Micro. "Anyone can download, store and distribute that information, it's out of your hands."

Privacy campaigners say more needs to be done to stop young people in particular depositing information online that may come back to haunt them.

"I think we need to change people's mindsets through education rather than legislation but it's definitely something that we need to talk to our children about," said Mr Sharpe.

Mr Fergusson, meanwhile, believes web users will increasingly demand better levels of data privacy over the coming decade.

"What would be ideal is some sort of technology where you as an end user would be able to assign the right to use, copy or distribute information about yourself to people of your own choosing," he said. "That sort of technology is already used in encrypted emails. I'm sure people will soon start asking for some form of encrypted social networking and companies will respond to that demand."

In his own words...

* "The internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn't understand, the largest experiment in anarchy we've ever had."

* "Show us 14 photos of yourself and we can identify who you are. You think you don't have 14 photos of yourself on the internet? You've got Facebook photos! People will find it's very useful to have devices that remember what you want to do, because you forgot... But society isn't ready for questions that will be raised as a result of user-generated content."

* "When the internet publicity began, I remember being struck by how much the world was not the way we thought it was, that there was infinite variation in how people viewed the world."

* "People are surprised to find out that an awful lot of people think that they're idiots."

NextStop joins Facebook

2010-08-17T06:43:00.000-07:00

We're joining Facebook

When we started nextstop just over two years ago, our goal was to make it dramatically easier to discover great things to do anywhere in the world. During that time, we've been amazed and delighted by your enthusiasm for this project, and it's strengthened our conviction that information from friends and passionate locals is a much better way to discover the world around you.

It's with that goal in mind that we have some big news to share today: nextstop has been acquired by Facebook. What this means is that we'll be joining Facebook and that Facebook has bought most of our assets.

This creates a number of big changes for the nextstop product and our community, but we believe it's an opportunity for some of the ideas behind nextstop to reach Facebook's audience of more than 400 million users and have a much bigger impact on the world than we could on our own.

What does this mean for you?

nextstop.com will be shutting down on September 1, 2010, but we want to make sure that the amazing guides that nextstoppers have created live on.

If you are an existing user, you can continue to use nextstop for the next two months and can use our export tools to export your contributions to Picasa Web Albums, Google Maps, or download a set of PDF or HTML files for your guides. We hope with these options you'll be able to retain all the work you've put into nextstop guides, albeit in a new form. You must export your guides by September 1.

Existing users will be getting an email with more details, but please feel free to contact us if you have any questions, or see our Frequently Asked Questions.

It's been a fantastic two years getting to know the members of the nextstop community and traveling vicariously through your guides. Thanks for being a part of nextstop.

* Unfortunately, we won't be releasing the nextstop content under a Creative Commons license as originally planned.

Export tools - FAQ - Contact Us - Existing user sign in

Commentary - Unfortunately when you buy into a product or idea and are one of the contributors you don't have a say in the ultimate direction of that product. There is a lot to be said about being paid a percentage or share of a project like a cooperative if the founders decide to sell out. Crowdsourcing has huge potential but the crowds will get hacked off if projects are always swallowed up by the big boys. I hope foursquare can remain independent and build up their own profile in the geolocation space and remain independent from Google , Facebook , Yahoo and the other big players.

Foursquarestival - Cheltenham this weekend

2010-08-17T04:07:00.000-07:00

We're harnessing the power of Foursquare to create a unique participatory event - Foursquarestival.
On the 21st August 2010 players will compete in a foxhunt that will lead them around points of artistic and cultural significance in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, visiting independent traders along the way and finally finishing at a secret party location.

The Foursquarestival team will prepare for the event by adding a series of tips and clues to a pre-determined set of locations. This will also involve liaising with local businesses to secure their involvement and make them aware of the promotional opportunities that can come from Foursquarestival and from Foursquare itself.

On the event day participants (the ‘hounds’) will have to locate a series of ‘foxes – each one will provide a clue as to the location of the next. Each fox will stay at their location for a certain amount of time before moving on. If the hounds turn up and the fox isn’t there, the manager/owner will hand over a clue or there will be a notification on the door that the fox has moved to a new location.

The aims of Foursquarestival
To enhance perceptions of Cheltenham as a town which has great
opportunities for creative activity.
To support local independent traders and increase footfall to their
businesses.
To test the potential of Foursquare as an application that can be
used for event management.
To give each team member a chance to add a significant and unique
piece of work to their respective portfolios.
To create an event template which can be presented to brands or
organisations looking to capitalize on Foursquare’s growing popularity.

GAP offering 25% discount for foursquare users (extended until 22nd August )

2010-08-15T11:01:00.001-07:00

Do you have Foursquare on your smartphone, or are you a member of Facebook or Twitter? If so, you may just be in luck today if you like shopping at the Gap.
Gap has announced that for today only, if you checkin at any Gap store location with your Foursquare account, you will receive 25% off of your total order. If you don’t have Foursquare on your phone, no problem. Gap is also offering a coupon code to twitter users, as well as a printable coupon for Facebook fans.
Gap seems to be really trying to advertise their brand via social marketing. It should be very interesting to see how well this marketing campaign does.

Originally only a one day deal - 15th August - has now been extended until 22nd August

Social Media Commentary - mobile device usage will surpass PC usage by 2015

2010-08-13T04:50:00.000-07:00

Found via the blog of Sarah Evans

Facebook customer satisfaction is in the bottom 5% of all private sector along w/ IRS tax e-filing, airlines and cable companies. (Source)
More than 60% of moms said they would provide info about themselves to a trusted brand if it meant more personalized content. (Source)
The 5 “most valuable” types of online influencers are: Megaphone, Open Book, Social Butterfly, Business First, and Enthusiast. (Source)
According to Morgan Stanley, within 5 years global internet consumption on mobile devices will surpass the same activity on PCs. (foursquare users take note )
Over the past 2 years, social web use in the workplace has risen from 19% to 24% in the U.S., UK, Germany and Japan. (Source)
Millennial generation will lead society into a new world of personal disclosure and information-sharing using new media. (Source)
More than 25% of Americans 50 yrs + stay connected using Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. (Source)
The average Facebook user creates 70 pieces of content each month. (Source)
People spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook (Source)
12% of experts and 14% of the general public think the internet has been a negative force
1 in 3 smartphone owners has called or stopped into a local business after using local search app (Source)
“Twitter is even more widely used this year with 41% of publications running a feed” (Source)
57.9% of moms Twitter from their cell phone, iPhone, Blackberry or smartphone. (Source)
The Internet is redefining our social relationships. (Source)
Almost two-thirds of people are happy to pay for quality journalism but not online, according to a YouGov survey. (Source)
Nearly 3 in 4 people worldwide who use Internet have visited a social network or blog and spend on avg 6 hours a month on them (Source)
68% of global consumers act upon email they receive on a mobile device while using a desktop PC (Source)
Social Media Up 230% Since 2007 [Information Week]
The most common friendship distance on Twitter is five steps. (The average distance is 4.67 steps) [Sysomos]
34% of Americans report they “tune out” social networking sites, 39% attribute to rude discourse and behavior [Weber Shandwick]

Why Andreessen Horowitz Invested in Foursquare - great article

2010-08-12T02:47:00.000-07:00

Written 29th June 2010 by Ben Horowitz - today we are extremely excited to announce that we are investing in Foursquare, a service that mixes social, locative, and gaming elements to encourage people to explore cities in which they live.

Here are the three reasons we invested.

1. A great Founder/CEO: Dennis Crowley

We prefer founding CEOs. In particular, we think the keeper of the product vision should run the company whenever possible because the toughest and most important decisions in technology companies are always about product strategy.
The only thing better than the CEO being the keeper of the vision is the CEO being the creator of the vision. In Foursquare’s case, Dennis not only created the vision for the company, but for the entire product category. Beyond that, he is very clearly the thought leader in the market. This is not at all surprising as he has been working on the problem for a decade and has highly refined his thinking through that period.
As importantly, Dennis embodies the kind of leadership that I described in Notes on Leadership. He’s the kind of leader that great technical minds will be excited to follow: visionary, righteous, and competent. I am really excited to work with Dennis to help him on his path from being a great leader to a great Chief Executive of an incredibly important company.

2. A killer product

When you look at the numbers, you’ll see that Foursquare is growing faster than Twitter did at this stage. In particular, their growth has been explosive over the past few months — they just hit 1 million users in April and now they’re approaching 1.8 million, adding around 15,000 users per day. It’s easy to see that people absolutely love the product. Less obvious to the competitors and pundits are the reasons why people love the product so much. I often hear people attribute Foursquare’s success entirely to check-ins or other easy-to-understand product features. It reminds me of the early days of Zynga when people thought the secret sauce behind Mafia Wars and Farmville were that those games were web-based.
It turns out Zynga games are wildly successful because Zynga has mastered the art of connecting friends via games—and they work incredibly hard behind the scenes to deliver what at face value looks very easy. How many times have you heard someone say, “I could have built Farmville in a weekend”?
Foursquare is very similar in that a lot of hard work behind the scenes goes into delivering a product that users love. Dennis and team have identified over a dozen different dimensions of the Foursquare product that must interact with each other in precisely optimal ways to achieve user delight. Years and years of research and sweat equity went into cracking the code, and the results are magical.

3. A gigantic market

At a macro level, over 4.6B people have mobile phones and there are 1.7B people on the Internet. Already, over 200M people worldwide have smart phones and that number is headed north fast. Foursquare might not win the entire smart phone market (some people don’t even like to leave their house), but it will capture a huge portion of it because it’s incredibly fun and addicting.
As importantly, we are very excited about Foursquare’s ability to make money in a way where all parties win: users, merchants, venue owners, brand advertisers, and more. In fact, users have been so excited about the product that they’ve actually been signing up local businesses to run promotions for Foursquare’s mayors and active users. This natural enthusiasm is happening even before Foursquare has added specific product features to help businesses run campaigns. As a result, major brands such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Zagat, Bravo TV, Starbucks, C-SPAN, Marc Jacobs and over 10,000 businesses are currently working with Foursquare to build customer loyalty and drive traffic. Not many companies have their users turn into their sales force, and it’s definitely a good sign that this is happening around Foursquare.
We are excited to be on this journey with our good friends at Foursquare.

Badge Directory

Misotrendy - now you can find out what's trending in your area!

2010-08-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

MisoTrendy helps you find the most popular places around any location. MisoTrendy uses trending data from foursquare and shows currently checked-in users, tips and mayorships from the most popular venues in real-time.

Go to Misotrendy.com or foursquare app gallery

Enter a city e.g. New York , London , San Francisco , Tokyo

It will ask you to allow access to a program that links your foursquare account.

Then you can search what is trending and which foursquare users have checked in

Badge Directory

footfeed - check in aggregator

2010-08-10T10:55:00.000-07:00

Footfeed is a new mobile geo location check-in aggregator network that brings together many web services so users can checkin to many networks simultaneously. Built from the ground up as a stand alone check-in service, Footfeed integrates APIs from Brightkite, Foursquare, Gowalla, Facebook (and soon Twitter, Google Latitude and Whrrl). Footfeed features an advanced location matching algorithm that matches locations across different services so that users can check-in to multiple services with one click. Using the Footfeed mobile check-in app, users can have their location matched across the different networks connected to their account and check-in to all networks simultaneously.
Footfeed also offers an API to developers and companies interested in adding multi check-in capabilities to their apps.

Footfeed was co-founded by Dennis Mink and Benjamin Floering and incorporated in January 2010. Dennis brings 12 years of experience in marketing and product development, having built two successful digital marketing agencies in Los Angeles. Ben Floering, who worked with IBM and AMD, is a senior software engineer and core code contributor to the Rails code base. In addition, Val Ornoy, a serial entrepreneur who most recently led business development in location-based services for Motorola, and a 14 year veteran in the mobile and tech space, heads up business development.

Here is a review of the service by James Hicks - footfeed review

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Auckland - Foursquare Mayors SkyCity Hotel have 1 nights accommodation to give away at the Mayor Party! http://www.skycityauckland.co.nz/Hotels/SKYCITY-Hotel.html

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