Thursday, April 8, 2010

End of the Line for Checkin Cheaters


If there was one social media tool that could really benefit from the "iPad fever" that's been sweeping the country over the past few weeks, it's Foursquare. An easily portable, internet-accessible tablet is perfect for a location-based app like this.

Not that Foursquare needs the help, with over 1.2 million site visitors and no sign that the momentum is slowing down.

Case in point: back in mid-March, I wrote about the big brand partnerships Foursquare made with companies like Starbucks and Bravo Network for different giveaways and contests.

And with more and more companies looking towards location-based apps for promotional work (and Foursquare being arguably the biggest of these apps right now), Foursquare recently took steps to fix the biggest problem the service has; cracking down on users who checkin to places they're not actually at.

The site is now using the GPS built into mobile phones to verify that cheating checkins are kept to a minimum. The reason this is so important is that because Foursquare is shoring up its biggest issue, current users who were frustrated with checkin cheating will remain loyal, while people who haven't tried Foursquare will be more likely to give it a shot.

More importantly, companies may be more willing to look into Foursquare as a viable promotional tool because these changes further legitimize it as the top of the location-based food chain.