FourSquare via Jason McKim on Flickr, Some Rights Reserved.

Their spiel: "We're all about helping you find new ways to explore the city. We'll help you meet up with your friends and let you earn points and unlock badges for discovering new places, doing new things and meeting new people." For me it's more like metadata in a physical space: the ability to tag a physical space with data that someone else can locate and consume. (Kind of like how dogs operate but at a much lower level right? Think about it). It's really powerful stuff; I've read a few conceptual pieces in the past about metadata in the physical space but I don't think the technology was quite there. Enter the iPhone and Android, although you can use a browser-based mobile device all the way to shorthand SMS.Foursquare was born out of Dodgeball, a similar service that was bought by Google, shut down, and replaced by Latitude. So the story goes Dodgeball's creators walked out on Google for lack of support. (I'd even go as far as saying that Dodgeball was close to the first incarnation of Twitter).

The more you score means the more you play means the more you're hooked. The gameplay grabs you from the start: get to a place, check in (a coder's wet dream) meaning you tell Foursquare where you are, and you're allocated points. Visit a place more than anyone else and you're crowned mayor of that spot. (Businesses in the US are even offering up incentives to those that claim mayorship). It's smart because people like free stuff as much as a does of healthy competition. You can also leave tips, the metadata part, so if they do a really good (or bad) sandwich others can take part in your favourite spots. A user generated city guide in real time.

Stalking for dummies means reputation has never been so important. I'll follow anybody on Twitter, hell, I followed you didn't I? But Foursquare is kind of different because you're actually giving away your whereabouts, and leaving a trial of your daily (and weekend for that matter) habits. Not to mention the legal implications of having a log of your daily movements; if a lawyer gains access to your Foursquare account does that mean your alibi still stands (as Mark Pollard pointed out)? You could easily map out a user's daily routine, as we are all creatures of habits at the end of the day, so I for one have been a little more calculating in who gains access to my Foursquare inner-circle. I don't want to come out all conspiracy theorist here, just letting you know how I've chosen to play the game. A lot of the people I've connected to thus far are electronic buddies that I talk to and trust online. They're reputable. The others I've allowed in on a whim and am thinking about whether or not to continue that relationship. There's also certain things I wouldn't do, like tag my home or those of families or close friends. Even though you can find me pretty easily in the White Pages there's something downright spooky about it.

Foursquare is a whole bunch of fun; it feels like the technology is finally ready for something like this and gives real plausibility to what augmented reality could do. Not only that but by playing along you're helping mark up the city with a whole stack of (hopefully) useful metadata that others can use and discover new places (and faces even). And many thanks to Laurel Papworth for asking Sydney to be a part of it!