Foursquare...the next hit in social media?  

I recently came across a social media game called "Foursquare" that seems to be growing in popularity. The game centers around you 'checking-in' when you are out at places such as cafes, restaurants, interesting places in your city to let your friends know where you are as well as make recommendations as to not-to-miss items on a menu, ect. With every check-in, you earn points and with every friend you get to join, you earn more points. And as your points add up you earn badges. I am still a little hazy on how it all works so if you would like to learn more, click here.

What is interesting about Foursquare is that it used to be restricted to your local area; you signed up to play in your city, and if you switched to a new location you had to start over. Recently, however Foursquare has changed its game to allow user to play anywhere in the world. This opens up opportunities to discover hot local hangouts and meet interesting people from all over. They are also updating there iPhone app to incorporate the new changes. Read more about this here.

I think this game sounds very interesting and like it could be another opportunity for companies to learn more about their consumers. Being able to track what hang outs a user frequents and some of their special interests could offer a great deal of insight into consumer behavior. I am very interested to see if this site keeps growing and becomes the "Twitter" of 2010.