What is Foursquare?

Foursquare is a social networking application for your cell phone that relies on your location to provide information relevant to where you are located at any given time.

Foursquare works on iPhone, Android, Blackberry, or Palm. If you have another phone with a web browser, you can use their mobile website. If you have a phone that doesn’t have a web browser, you can use our SMS. The system works in the US only for now.

Check-in to places

People use foursquare to “check-in”, which is a way of telling Foursquare your whereabouts. When you check-in someplace, Foursquare tells your friends where they can find you, and recommend places to go & things to do nearby. People check-in at all kind of places – cafes, bars, restaurants, parks, homes, offices.  As your friends use foursquare to check-in, you’ll start learning more about the places they frequent. You’ll also start to learn about their favorite spots and the new places they discover. Foursquare makes lists of your favorite things to do and lets you share your experiences with friends, and even suggest new experiences to seek out. As you check-in around the city, you’ll start finding tips that other users have left behind. After checking-in at a restaurant, it’s not uncommon to unlock a tip suggesting the best thing on the menu. Checking-in at a bar will often offer advice on what your next stop should be. Every tip you create is discoverable by other users just by checking in.

Earn points and unlock badges!

Every foursquare check in earns you points. Find a new place in your neighborhood? +5 points. Making multiple stops in a night? +2 points. Dragging friends along with you? +1. And as you start checking-in to more interesting places with different people, you’ll start unlocking badges. There are badges for discovering new places and for traveling to far away places. Spending too much time singing karaoke or been hitting the gym consistently? Yes, there are badges for those too.

Become the mayor! Unlock some freebies!

We all have our local hangouts. Foursquare keeps tabs on who’s the most loyal of all the regulars. If you’ve been to a place more than anyone else, you’ll become “the mayor”… until someone else comes along and steals your title. Foursquare provides a list of places that are offering freebies to “mayors” – free coffees, free ice-cream, free hotel stays, etc.

So that’s about it – ready to sign up?