Since March I have been enviously seeing cryptic tweets from my friends in the UK saying they had become mayor of places on Foursquare.

To my excitement on Monday it launched in Australia with Melbourne and Sydney data – mayorship of my favourite places here I come. See how it is already working? You have to be physically close to a place (GPS on your phone works this out) to be able to check in or leave comments.  It doesn’t take me much to get addicted to a new clever social site.  Facebook and Tweetie on the iPhone get a bit of a rest with Foursquare on the scene.

What is it?

A location service-based social network that has game play attributes to keep you hooked and competing with friends in your network.

It tells you where your friends are and allows you to leave notes against your favourite locations so that anyone in your network will be alerted when they are nearby. The more you do the more badges you unlock and the more points you get.

If you check in to the same location on two separate days you will become mayor of that place…until someone else checks in more than you and then they will become mayor.

Earlier today a friend on Twitter commented positively that they had checked into somewhere and got a text from a friend nearby saying they were just around the corner suggesting they meet up for lunch. Twitter was the biggest player in passively finding out information about people, Foursquare adds location to the mix.

In the rare event you don’t want all your friends knowing your every move you can hide where you are but still play and gain points by “checking in” and toggling  “tell my friends” to off. This will show you as [off the grid].

Seeing as it revolves around going to places and doing things there it makes perfect sense for the businesses to get involved. Some examples of how companies are using Foursquare:

Coupons

The most common use is a coupon for you to use when you show the person serving you your phone. Or the business can offer coffee card style offers can be where if you check in x number of times you can redeem a free coffee or other related offer.

Broadcast specials

When I was at Crown Casino yesterday Automatic cafe popped up in my near by tips telling me they have pizzas from $8 – $10 on Monday nights.

Mayor specials

Offering special deals and freebies to the current mayor of a venue.

From the Foursquare site

“you’d be surprised how effective a little friendly competition – over mayorship, over free fries! – can be at driving people back to your venue.”

As with any site in its infancy people are still working out how to use it and whether it is relevant for their lifestyle to continue to use. I would watch the space though as while we all play granular data about local businesses is being gathered at a rapid pace they will be ready to take things to the next level fairly soon.

More information

Foursquare site

iPhone app download

Android download