Step 1: Download the app to the smartphone or notepad of your choice. From there, your options are virtually endless. Check in everywhere you go in order to try to be the mayor of every place into which you step. Check in only at the gym so people think you’re really fit. Never check in and just leave “tips” at certain venues to leave advice (or snarky comments) for people who show up later. You do have to, at the very least, have a cell phone to use Foursquare. And to be fully included, though they have a texting version like Twitter’s, you have to have a smartphone with internet or cellular data access and the ability to download apps. On the site, the users you see are mainly those who are your "friends", people you have chosen to allow to see and get updates on your check-ins, and on a site where you’re constantly telling your Foursquare friends where you are, most people don’t want too many friends that they don’t actually know very well.
When I joined the Foursquare, I had very few friends who used the site, so I added everyone from my Facebook, Twitter, and email address book who the site told me used Foursquare. The problem, though, was that unless these people checked on the computer site, they couldn’t access my “friend request” (a problem which an app update has since solved). For a few weeks, I only had three “friends” on Foursquare. This made it so that some of the site’s main features, like checking in with friends, were not possible for me. Also, except for someone who was my “friend” or who was at
a given venue at the same time I was, it really didn’t matter much that I had checked in. I didn’t link my account to my Twitter or Facebook (I’m a little skeptical of the idea of telling the general public where I am ALL the time), so most of my friends that I see on a regular basis didn’t have any idea that I now avidly check-in on Foursquare anytime I go somewhere, or when I don’t, for that matter. In a way that no other site could, Foursquare seemed to connect me to my surroundings but also make me feel secluded, with the secret that I was an avid Foursquare user. The friends I did have who connect Foursquare to Twitter and such, while didn’t seem to have a problem with getting friends, but they still only averaged around 40 friends, compared with over ten times that many on Facebook.
The first friend I have as an example of a type of Foursquare user is one who I not only don’t know well, but who I don’t know at all. Tony Weber’s avatar on Foursquare is Roger Moore as James Bond, not a “real” face. According to some of my friends, it really frustrates them when people don't use their real pictures as their avatar. I’m personally not a fan of avatars that aren’t your picture on most sites, but on Foursquare in particular, it seems odd. After checking emails I had received from Foursquare, I learned that I asked him to be my friend, but I have no idea who he is or when I did this. His avatar is William Shatner on Twitter (I don’t follow him) and is Sasquatch on Facebook (we’re not friends). I have no clue when or how I asked him to be my friend, but he lives in Austin, and I know everywhere he goes. I could stalk him if I
really wanted to, because the places of which he's mayor include “Tony’s refrigerator” and “Tony’s couch.” Tony obsessively checks in. In fact, he may be dangerously checking in – he doesn’t know me and I know where he is at all times! I get more notifications of his whereabouts than of any of my real friends. For Foursquare to really mean much, you have to be going somewhere when you check in, or you're inviting the killer from Seven to come get you for Sloth. But I'm mayor of my apartment building, and unless you follow me, chances are you don't know what floor or what room. Creating a venue for your couch and becoming friends with strangers is a different story, though. I don't really come off as threatening on my Foursquare page (imagine me smiling and checking in on campus all the time) but what if my picture was an avatar - just not a famous one?
For those who use Foursquare often, and this hits you as soon as you start using it, the check-ins can be a sort of competition. The site allows users to become “Mayor” of a particular
institution, place, even room – any venue you can create. You’re not really "mayor" in any sense other than being there all the time, usually. Occasionally venues offer coupons or other perks (free pizza, etc.) to their mayors. The University Co-op, for example, offers its mayor a $50 gift card on the 28th of every month. For me, the chance to gain mayorships made badges secondary. These types of incentives are still relatively rare, though. Soon after I joined the site, I began wanting very badly to be the mayor of my apartment building. I live here. I check in here nearly every day. The app even tells you when you’re within 10 days of becoming the mayor of any place when you check in. But for two weeks I didn’t get such a notification. When I first wrote about Foursquare, I was still an excruciating 9 days from becoming mayor, but I didn’t think I could actually make it. Someone else in this building was an avid Foursquare user, and they got to the site (and the site of our apartment complex) before I did. Now, however, I am the mayor. Foursquare started using a system soon after I joined so that “this week” really meant between this time exactly and this time seven days ago. During Spring Break, the person who had been relatively diligent about checking in at this building must have gone on vacation, because my Spring Break included a countdown: “5 days til you’re the mayor...4 days til you’re the mayor...” Finally, on the last day (Saturday) of Spring Break, I became the mayor of the Quarters Sterling House. Now, I am the old user who won’t stop checking in and who is keeping new users from being within ten days of becoming the mayor. Other places, though, like the bus I take to work, were ones that either no one cared to check in to or that no one was an avid enough user until now to check into often, and I took those mayorships easily, and hold them, even though I don’t check in at them very often.
There is a sort of class structure that is almost unnoticeable, but that I felt was tangible on the site. Some users check in at very specific places in order to create a certain appearance.
Others, like my Foursquare “friend” Vincent, truly are often checking in at venues like the airport. Vincent is a “friend” – he and I aren't friends in the true sense of the word, but we know each other through social networking sites and mutual acquaintances. To be honest, I’m not sure he'd recognize me on the street, but I know that he was in D.C. a couple months ago. Vincent owns a social media company and as such has the opportunity to travel for work often. On top of this, his group of friends includes more people than average who use SNS’s frequently. As such, Vincent has nearly 200 Foursquare friends and has checked in over 1,200 times. He’s the mayor of only five venues, but they include his Florida office and two gyms. He has more badges than anyone I know (I used his badge page to figure out how to get some of the badges) and when I see his check-ins or look at his page, I get the feeling that he’s, simply put, cooler than my other friends. When I joined Foursquare, Vincent was one of those first three friends, and while his pings were often things like "Mmmm Chipotle... Vincent H. @ Chipotle," I got the sense, from his not-exactly-rare check-ins at the airport that he was using Foursquare for something that was more important than my check in at Chipotle and then at my apartment.
A real hierarchy has been created by the makers of Foursquare that, unless one happens to be researching it, goes unnoticed to the average user. That hierarchy is one comprised of people called “Superusers.” No site that I could find online knew exactly how to become a Superuser, but from the people who didn’t mind bragging that they had been awarded the title, I have a feeling that it has to do with checking in often and being a member for a certain amount of time. According to AboutFoursquare.com, Superusers are “regular users who’ve been hand selected by the foursquare staff to help maintain the venue database.” Superusers come in stages: a user can be a 1, 2, or 3. At Level 1, users can report venues to have them deleted or combined and can edit any venue. Level 2 Superusers can, on top of their Level 1 power, complete suggested merges, add categories to venues, and close venues. Level 3 Superusers can create and remove venue names and can lock venues so that they can only be edited by other Level 3 Superusers. The Level 3 Superuser power is not often awarded. This real hierarchy, which also points to the fact that the site’s creators are intimately involved in the maintenance of the site through their choosing Superusers, is one that the average Foursquare user has no conception of and would not be very likely to notice.
If a user checks in ten times in twelve hours, Foursquare will award him the “Overshare” badge. In our everyday lives, it seems, we have a conception of “overshare,” and checking in everywhere we go (and broadcasting it) just might be overshare, even to some of our closest friends. A friend of mine on the site was the person that inspired me to try Foursquare for this project – and he has no idea. My friend Josh is the sort of Foursquare user who checks in everywhere. He has his account connected to his Twitter and often takes flak from our friends about all his check-ins. A whole conversation at dinner, after I had already joined the site (I remained quiet), was dedicated to picking on Josh about his Foursquare use. He is the mayor of a few sandwich shops and proudly checks in at Chick-fil-A at least three times a week. For a long time, Josh checked in every morning at work, but after registering with Foursquare as an employee, he is no longer the mayor of the venue. Since this turn of events, Josh doesn't check in at work anymore, or at least not on a very regular basis. Still, at any given time, a third of Josh’s latest tweets are likely to be “Josh P. @ HEB” or “Josh P. @ Thundercloud Subs.” This sort of user is the type that is using the site purely for the fun of it and because it is a social networking site to be a part of. Josh isn’t the mayor of any venues who give incentives, and he certainly isn’t selective about the announcements of his whereabouts. My guess is that he’s the kind of user who genuinely enjoys using the site.
My friend Jenn joined the site after I confessed to her and another friend, Charity, that I was using Foursquare on the night of Josh's dinner ribbing. She didn’t judge me, as I was afraid she would, but rather said she had been mildly interested in joining herself. And boy, did she join. Jenn is an example of someone who likes checking in everywhere. Jenn checks in when she eats out, when she gets back to Brazos garage, and when she gets back to Jester. If I didn’t know where Jenn was for a few days based on her pings to my phone, I would probably begin
to worry about her. Jenn also provided me with my first-ever example of a Foursquare "flesh meet.” One day I was minding my own business and eating a burrito with my roommate at Chipotle when all of a sudden, I looked up to see two of my friends. I couldn’t believe they found me so randomly, but Jenn said, "I know where you are all the time.” I had checked in at Chipotle on Foursquare! Sometimes I forget that my actions on a social networking site have consequences. In the case of Foursquare, if I didn’t have that friend I don’t know, I think this sharing is completely healthy. The site, it seems, encourages "flesh meets" among friends. Foursquare doesn’t want me to be lonely – it wants me to see my friends more often.
Charity followed me and Jenn onto Foursquare, and the three of us ended up having a Foursquare day together. Charity acts like she’s above the idea of being on Foursquare, but she gets excited about beating people to a check in if you're together. She checks in mainly at the rowing center and at the Capitol, two places she wants people to remember that she visits. One time that she did get excited: Foursquare day at Six Flags. The three of us checked in at every ride, trying to get as many points as possible. This meant trying to beat each other to checking in at a particular coaster (I got my Overshare Badge that day), because you get extra points for being the first of your friends to check in at a particular venue. Like Foursquare does, we trusted each other to wait until we were actually to a coaster to check in – one could probably check in at any coaster from a central location in the park. This day of checking in together further solidified for me that Foursquare intends to bring friends together. In fact, that day we all got “BFF Bonus” points for being around each other so much.
On Foursquare, you can be whoever you want to be. As long as you tell your friends who that is so they can look for you. The point of Foursquare doesn’t turn out to just be about being the mayor or getting badges and points – Foursquare wants to help users hang out with the people they know. Unlike sites such as Facebook and Twitter, Foursquare encourages “friends” to actually be friends - to be around one another. It's true, this site and its perks are really only available to those who have smartphones, not simply internet access, but lately it seems that more and more people of all kinds are able to conform to that requirement. Concerns with letting someone know your location seem to be broken down more often everyday, at least among users of smartphones and other social networking sites. You have to be going somewhere, it’s true. If a person is a stay at home mom, it wouldn't be very worthwhile to check in. But her friends would know where she was. For people who are often, say, walking around Austin, the site provides a way to actually see those people who are their friends -especially when it turns out that it would only take walking a few steps down the street.
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