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Conclusion of the Four Square Experiment

Shane Hale — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 18:29:09 +0000

Can I trade badges for girl scout cookies?

So after just over a month of checking in, adding tips, and completing to do’s on Four Square, I’m not sure if I have a definitive answer whether its a valuable social network for me. Four Square definitely comes off more as a game then a social network. The competition of declaring mayorships and collecting badges are enticing enough to strike that competitive streak in everyone. During the course of the month I was dismayed when I lost a mayorship, and found myself visiting that location more frequently, just to get it back.

During the course of the month, my Four Square profile has seen four new badges. The Super User badge, for 30 check ins in a month, the Local Badge for checking in to Online Guru 3x in the week, the Bender Badge for checking in 4+ Nights in a row, and the Explorer Badge for checking into 25 Venues.

I also established a few new majorships, which I guess shows my dedication to these businesses or perhaps how routine my life may be. So not a big surprise I’m the major of Oggi’s Pizza, Pure Salon & Spa, Chipotle, Taco Bell, and Luna Grill all withing 5-10 minutes from home, and several right across the street.

A buddy of mine also pointed out the dangers for location based social networking. Spreading your Four Square updates through Twitter can give any potential robber the knowledge that your not home. Please Rob Me takes results from the Twitter feed looking for Four Square’s tags. The website was designed to enlighten Four Square users to what they are sending out on the web. Over the course of a minute over 100 Four Square updates were sent out.

I guess the next valuable question is, where is the value in all of this Four Square madness. For me, there wasn’t much except for the tips I found based on your location. In-N-Out and Chipotle list secret menu items, while others offer parking advice. Once again, perhaps if more friends were on Four Square I might opt to use it more frequently.

That being said I’m going to pick Four Square as the current front runner for location based social networking. They are doing a better job then BrightKite, Loopt, Yelp, or Gowalla. With the rumor Facebook is going to join the club, this might be the catalyst that gets local social networking to the masses.

The FourSquare Experiment

Shane Hale — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 21:40:49 +0000

Can I trade badges for girl scout cookies?

Four Square is a relatively new local social media application. I’ve been on FourSquare for a few months now and really haven’t found the purpose besides pissing off my girlfriend from constantly updating my location from my iPhone. So I haven’t really been a full fledged user of the social media application.

To be fair I will say I was an active user of BrightKite until I got bored with that as well. I will say I like Bright Kite’s ability to upload images from your locations. But the applications are pretty close to the same for me. They update my twitter account and allows internet stalkers to keep tabs on me. I think the problem is none of my friends utilize these local social media services. Even the internet gurus out there haven’t really embraced local social media.

So I’m going to (or should say have been) trying to check in to every place I’ve visited during the month of February. This far I’ve received 1 new friend, a new mayorship and a badge. But I’m going to embrace the application. It will be checked more frequently then my facebook page. At the end of the month, I’ll take inventory of what I’ve accomplished and whether it was worth it or not.

Twitter Lists: Useful or Not Just Yet

Shane Hale — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:06:00 +0000

Earlier this month (I know I’m behind), Twitter announced a new feature called lists. Immediately this reminded me something of Facebook Lists, but only on the top 10% of the surface. Once you dive in, there’s there are a lot more usable for the public (like twitter) but not the private (like facebook).

My ‘A’ List:
I started off creating some general lists for everyone I’m following. Work, Web-Design, Graphic Design, San Diego Chargers, San Diego Breweries, etc. When I’m interested in one topic over another I can view tweets from those listed. An additional benefit is being able to add users that I normally wouldn’t follow. Example… I follow Shawne Merriman (@shawneMerriman) but I wouldn’t follow Chad Johnson (@OGOchoCinco). However, I can place them both in an NFL Players List, if I ever want to see them both.

Twitter lists expand your reach 10 fold, but your not looking at everything like Twitter Search. I think its a definite useful feature. Here are some of the lists I created, which you should follow if they interest you.

Am I Listed:
The second thing I checked was, where was I getting listed? And the honor was that I being added to follower lists. Most people would say, who cares if your listed? These are probably the same people that say ‘why do I care what your doing right now?’ and then update their Facebook status to bored.

Being listed gives you feedback regarding two things. The first is a reflection of your personal brand and if people give a shit what your saying on twitter. The second is if other user are following a list your in. This is less reflective on you, but more of the list you’ve been dropped in.

Here are the current lists I’m in, and I would suggest you follow em for the obvious reason. You made it this far in the post so you probably like what I’m throwing down.

Fail Whale Strikes Again!

Shane Hale — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:35:00 +0000

Monday Morning… Feeling surprisingly awake and alive and…FAIL WHALE. Damn you Twitter. How about taking some of that VC cash and upgrade you servers.

Speaking of Twitter, if your not already following me or if you are, here are some of the Twitter users to follow:

Twitter.com/ShaneHale7

Twitter.com/brdaga7

Twitter.com/CooperCapone

Twitter.com/OnlineGuruInc

Twitter.com/DMVORG

Twitter.com/PureSalonSpa

Twitter.com/EntertainMac

Twitter.com/onebeeraday