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What Foursquare Could Learn from Marco Polo

It's no great secret that I don't get Foursquare. At least not for me. While I readily admit that I find the societal phenomenon that is Foursquare to be interesting, (like my friend Holly Wall) I just don't care if people know where I am or not. The truth is I feel it probably gives me an advantage if people don't know where I am. I even think it's a little disturbing that some people do want to have their location known all the time. I mean the whole idea of Foursquare is, like most social media, more than a little narcissistic. Each Foursquare participant proudly posts their location because, at some level, they believe that the knowledge of their geospatial relationship to the world revolving around them is of invaluable interest to someone, likely everyone.  In the words of Abby Wambaugh,

Foursquare is just another example of how social MEdia is all about ME. "I'M HERE! COME SEE ME HERE! I'M HERE AND YOU'RE NOT INVITED"

That said, Foursquare does have it's appeal. While I don't really care if people know where I am, I occasionally do want to know where other people are, but not those people - you know, the ones that update Foursquare all the time.  (As an aside, I've developed a theory - the amount people care where you is is inversely proportional to the frequency at which you update Foursquare.) The problem with Foursquare is that the model focuses on the POSTING of location, not the utility of using that information. This begs the age old question, if a tree becomes the Mayor of the forest but no one's following it on Twitter to read about it, does it make a sound?  The reality, most of the time , is no one cares that you are at Kip's Big Boy... again. Unless, of course, they do.

As a tool to fuel narcissism, Foursquare works great - it amplifies the dilution that the world is somehow interested in the insignificant minutia of one's otherwise pathetic life. But as tool to inform one about the location of people whom they want to locate? You know, something of actual utility? In my opinion, it falls short - explicitly because Foursquare focuses on the narcissism of the poster.

So this got me thinking today. Remember playing that game "Marco Polo" in the swimming pool as a kid? One person closes their eyes and yells "Marco?" and all the other kids yell "Polo" revealing their location. Then the Marco-yeller, with eyes still closed, then tries to tag the Polo-yellers. Now this model of geo location makes sense to me. The Marco-yeller needs to know everyone else's location so he or she sends out a general request.

Now, image the same game except the kid with his eye closed yells "Polo" over and over again. The other kids go about their day because they don't see the value of Foursquare, and frankly find the kid with his eye closed to be annoying. I don't know about you, but this seems like a significantly less fun game to me.

So what I think Foursquare needs - or a competitor - needs to develop is a Marco Polo feature.  I run an app on my iPhone and press the "Marco" button. Everyone on my friends list gets a text asking them to yell "Polo" by running an app on their phone that posts their location. I then wait a few minutes and see a current list of all my friends who want to be found at that moment. The system could be smart enough to realize when someone has checked-in (either as a "Polo" or just because) within some time frame - say 30 minutes - and not send the text (limiting the maximum number of text received to one per 30 minutes or whatever). If I have a lot of friend and they all yell "Marco" a lot it would get annoying - but that's a good thing because it forces people to keep their networks small and meaningful.  Another good thing about this model is that the system prompts you at the precise moment when someone cares where you are - so you only check in when that information is actually valuable to a real person - not just the anonymous Foursquare-o-verse of whatever it's called.

I think there's some interesting potential here and Will Buthod agrees (from Twitter):

@wbuthod: @mattgalloway Ooh, cool! you could play all sorts of cool games, like "Stalker Pong", or "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Roulette"!

@wbuthod: @mattgalloway Actually, it's not a bad idea. As a SM tool *and* as a minimalist lifeline for "helicopter parents".

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Roulette!?!? Finally we're talking social media with real purpose. I'm guessing someone's already doing this but I haven't yet seen it. If it did come about, I might just give it a try.

Author: Matt Galloway

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