I didn’t know what geniuses did with their free time until recently: apparently, some of the geniuses “play Foursquare” which allows them to both impress their friends and family with knowledge of nearby restaurants and hotspots and become Mayors of unincorporated towns and municipalities like Microsoft which is a world in and of itself. 

The idea of Foursquare is simple. As described by TechWorld:

“When you fire up your mobile Foursquare app it locates you and identifies a number of local venues for you to check into. If the place you're at isn't listed you can refine the search or add that venue to the overall list.

When you have checked-in to a venue more than anyone else - it must be on separate days, and you must have added a profile picture - you'll be crowned "Mayor" of that venue. You remain Mayor until someone else usurps you by checking in more times.”

I recently was in class with “Mr. Microsoft” who has earned the most check-ins at Microsoft and has become the official Microsoft Foursquare Mayor. Some of the class members were impressed with the young genius’ attention to detail and his ability to check himself onto Foursquare without fear at any place in time, but others secretly wondered about how the young genius was choosing to spend his time. 

Was he really that impressed with the incredible Foursquare technology or just impressed that he could be elected Mayor of anything? How geeky do you have to be to be the King of the Geeks at Microsoft? 

I’m not exactly sure what the Mayor of Microsoft’s motivations were for “playing Foursquare,” but he and several thousand others seem to love the “game” of Foursquare.

 Personally, I think he’s bored, but I’m old-school. Whatever happened to the days when people read books? Do Microsoft geeks even read any more?

The lack of intellectual curiosity or stimulation is not the only problem that I see with Foursquare. 

Correct me if I’m wrong (and I’m sure you will), but isn’t Foursquare going to make it much easier for stalkers to find their prey? The stalkers won’t all be necessarily serial killers or that scary; it’s much more likely that any Foursquare stalkers are nerds trying to become more cool. Which isn’t a bad thing if you recall that the nerds are usually the ones who end up with the better jobs and thus, more money. It’s kind of funny to think about the dialog: 

“Hey, where’s that cute girl in my art class? OMG, she’s at ABC Pizza with her hot friends. Let’s go.”

How soon is it before my classmate, the Mayor of Microsoft, gets stalked himself? He’s not bad-looking and I think he’s going to have a hard time fending away the little geek girls around him. 

How about you? Do you trust Foursquare? Do you check in your locations and if so, what are you the Mayor of? 

I want to know. 

http://review.techworld.com/applications/3210966/foursquare-review/