Night Apes Dream

Since it’s introduction to Australia (and I’m sure before that too), Foursquare’s integration with Twitter (location updates, mayorships and badges) has caused quite a backlash of people complaining about not wanting to hear what restaurant you have just become the mayor of. At first I thought this was understandable, as I too am not a fan of automated Twitter updates, but then I actually gave it some thought. Twitter was built upon the concept of “what are you doing now”, and what could be more relevant than what you are doing, now?

I’m tempted to almost go as far as saying that Foursquare is the logical next step for Twitter. It adds another layer of detail to peoples Twitter stream; gives you context around where their tweets are coming from, tells you  the places they frequent often and what they think of these places. Tweeting your Foursquare activities also informs people who aren’t aware of Foursquare that you’re playing. Several of my friends are now happily playing Foursquare after asking “what’s with all this mayor stuff you tweet about?”

Much of Twitter’s appeal is its brief, simple updates. If another service can push relevant updates to Twitter, than surely that can only improve the experience. Of course the matter of relevance is subjective, but that’s Twitter. There are enough people manually updating Twitter with mundane content that an automatic process shouldn’t offend people so much. Not to mention all the other auto update services that don’t seem to raise so much ire like people going for a jog, favouriting a Youtube clip or listening to a song. If you don’t like people’s updates, there’s always the Unfollow button.

The negative response to Foursquare actually reminds me a bit of people’s response to Twitter when if first came out. People who weren’t part of it simply took the “I don’t understand it, therefore I won’t use it, therefore it doesn’t have a purpose” stance without investing any effort to actually see the appeal.

Just like Twitter, Foursquare is definitely not for everyone, and I wouldn’t try and talk somebody into it if they’re not interested, but I would like to see people who should know better not judging something before they’ve tried it, and also stop complaining about everyone else having fun without them.