If you are a Twitter or Facebook user but not yet a Foursquare user, you often get the following postings or tweets from your friends, for example:
- I’m at Subway (Solaris Dutamas). http://4sq.com/7YiYRB
- I’m at LDP TOLL. http://4sq.com/c8xWqkY
-
Dinner with friends(@Chan Chan Yong Tou Foo) http://4sq.com/ci7Hrt58
- I’m at 7-11, Jalan Ipoh http://4sq.com/dll6hY9E
What do these postings or tweets mean to you at first glance? These are actually “checking-ins”, i.e. places where your friends have gone to, it could be any place from parks, bars, museums, restaurants, libraries, buildings..really anywhere. When they check in, the software (called foursquare) will let your friends’ friends know where they can find your friends and award them points and badges based on their adventurousness.
Being adventurous enough I signed up as well to test the usefulness of it. After some check-ins and announcing all my check-ins to all my friends (via automated links to Twitter and Facebook accounts), I soon realized that it was not at all a very good idea to broadcast all my tracks (check-ins) after a few days. In actual fact, it is virtually telling the world where exactly where you are and at what time if you do not set your privacy settings right in the programme (and normally people don’t set them right)
I read a news story a week ago that should be read by all Foursquare users. It just highlighted that some privacy loopholes that could be used or compromised by unscrupulous people to stalk or track you on purpose. Of course, Foursquare had since plugged the loophole as announced in their blog.
My two cents
Foursquare is great application which is a location service-based social network-cum-game. It is fun and useful if you really want to let your friends know where you are without informing them physically. However I would only use it sparingly and with great caution and set my privacy settings correctly to reflect my preference. For more information of Foursquare, you may like to visit here or its official website.
Tags: 4square, caution, check-in, check-ins, Facebook, foursquare, location-based, social network, twitter
