Happy New Year Everybody.

I have recently spent some time analyzing Foursquare a new social media application launched last year in March. I have a feeling that Foursquare will grow exponentially in 2010 becoming the new social media hit and let me explain you why.

Foursquare is a location-based social network mobile application that helps you connect with venues and friends using GPS via your mobile device. Foursquare is a win-win situation. It pleases the patrons and the venue owners.  In Foursquare there is a social mechanism where people say where they are hanging out or staying and through a built in g ame system it will reward them for doing so, with badges and titles.

The system really empowers the venue owner, it helps identify his customers with their real names ( sometimes it is hard on twitter) and it helps to know who comes in more often. I see it as a technological loyalty system without the cost of it as it all comes integrated in the apps. The application also includes the suggestion's area with tips and to do list for future people checking in at the same venue..and it also helps the patrons being identified for what they really are i.e.: newbie, local and loyal. Foursquare triggers some sort of respect-benefit for the patrons in the acknowledgement of the title that the patrons have gained through checking in to the venue multiple times. Patrons will also enjoy the shared tips and recommended to do list that other patrons have left for them.  To me, as a venue owner, it is a super cool application, and it makes a lot of sense from any point of view.

What is new about Foursquare? It is one of the few, social networks that work's online and offline, in example you can do your online check in at Giapo while you're walking through the door of the real Giapo. It integrates smoothly between both world's. Foursquare is location bound. The information given on display are limited by where you are. If you are in Queen St. Auckland, you cannot check in Mission Bay.

Foursquare has the potential to become big because it is free and the opportunity to turn "mayorship" into something meaningful for us is huge and so it will be the revenues for foursquare shareholder.

There are many similarities between Foursquare, Twitter and Facebook. All of them relate to the successful paradigm of friends. If you join foursquare you will know where your friends are, and they will know where you are too. From my point of view, working on the friends paradigm is a winning point because it narrows what it would have been an otherwise global mess of people going places and telling you where they are, think like twitter without the followers and only timeline.

Foursquare has a powerful game changing idea in respect to Twitter and Facebook, ... we know that  the differences between Facebook and Twitter are getting minimal in terms of "real time and now"..  with Foursquare  instead the game has changed from real time to who and what is about 50 meters from me. Which opens a complete new scenario for marketers, brands, people and companies in general. Twitter, Facebook and
recently Google has shown us the power of NOW!, the real time search, the real time conversation, the real time engagement, the instant thin g.. What I see with foursquare instead is the power of nearness, the context of where you are and its relation to the business world. I believe in Foursquare as a successful business model because I believe in the "power of nearness" and therefore, the opportunity for Foursquare to turn their system into a big fortune is infinite: sponsored badges, sponsored mayorships, sponsored list of things to do in the area, sponsored venues, sponsored promotions, sponsored links, payable subscriptions for the venue owners and son on and so forth...

In conclusion, my view about foursquare is that it can really be the new twitter. Mobiles marketing is becoming the new black and ideally, marketers will be able to serve the people with the products or services they have in their proximity, around them, next to them. The change is also for local businesses at a lower level like mine, we small business owner should realize how to change the strategy and concentrate on local as well. Sooner than later it will not be enough to monitor, engage, inform, listen and converse, your new job description will see you to answer what is happening around my area, in the nearness of my business or who is the best around my area, who is coming to my business more
often, and what am I doing for them.

Did you check in at Giapo? There is a Special on at the moment. Mayor gets a free waffle cone everyday of his/her Mayorship. Best Gianpaolo Grazioli is the founder of Giapo, the genuine Italian gelato company.

Gianpaolo Grazioli

Founder of Giapo
The Genuine Italian Gelato company.
Follow me on twitter @gpgrazioli and @giapo