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| Mayor badge in Foursquare |
Earlier in my blog I took my stance on location based forms of social media. Although I feel like they are unsafe, I also know that people are really into the gaming aspect of it. In Foursquare, if you check into a certain place more than anyone else, you become the mayor of that place. Earlier this month in my Social Media Marketing class we discussed how people could cheat the system and check into places from their couch and eventually become the mayor of that place. I also learned from an article on
Mashable.com that people can also check into a place if they are near it instead of inside it. I bet you are thinking, "So what?" I would be thinking this too if I didn't fully understand the ramifications. The problem with this is that most businesses are starting to give mayoral discounts, and incentives to the mayor of their establishment so that more people will want to check into their location and cash in on the deals. Foursquare finally caught onto this and so they are putting the power of the highly sought after mayor badge into the hands of the store owners. Since Foursquare cannot fix this problem immediately, Foursquare knows that businesses using this social media platform know their regular customers. This means that business owners can now flag you on Foursquare and you can lose your mayorship. What do you think? Do you think this is taking it too far? Do businesses have the right to tamper with a social media game? I think they have every right to do this if others are exploiting this loophole to gain discounts and other incentives that they don't deserve at the companies expense.
I think it's a great idea. If people are cheating the system they shouldn't be getting discounts or any other promotiona offers.
ReplyDeleteThe only bad side is what if they delete someone who actually does come to the store often and is legit? Or even someone who is cheating but still come to their store a lot. I mean those cheaters must shop there some if they're wanting special offers from that business. That could cost them some of their current customer base.
I also agree with erica, I think this whole program is neat and a great idea, but if people are cheating and still receiving incentives and what I think too that something needs to change and catch the people who are actaully cheating.
ReplyDeleteAlso, how do they really know who is actually playing and checked into that place and actually being there compared to those who are cheating? This is one aspect I think that needs to be clarified.
I never really understood Foursquare until recently. It's really neat, but I agree..something needs to be done so that people aren't cheating. Good post!
ReplyDeleteI think the regulations they are going to incorporate with checking-in are necessary to prevent those who try to cheat the system. Businesses especially should be concerned because this can hurt their user interaction. If people are discouraged and know they will not win the mayor position because of cheaters, they will not feel the need to check-in anywhere anymore. This would be an unfortunate repercussion because businesses are just now learning how to properly utilize location based sites.
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