Foursquare Goes to College

by Jason
December 7, 2009

100 cities strong since their last roll out, Foursquare seems to be gaining some traction across the country. FoursquareEveryone is making their predictions about whether Foursquare is the next Twitter [including me].

I have been using Foursquare for months now in other cities. When it hit my hometown of Charlotte a couple weeks back, I was surprised how many people jumped on. I had 150 friend requests the day after Charlotte was opened.

UNC Charlotte, my alma mater, only took about a week to see the potential of Foursquare on their campus. Last week they became the first University in the country to offer promotions through Foursquare across their campus.

Foursquare Goes to College

I interviewed Brian Baute, IT Director for Business Services at UNC Charlotte, about what their goals are for using Foursquare campus wide.

According to Foursquare, the only other campuses using their promotions are Columbia, who has one promotion running for their campus movie theater, and Harvard who is developing something campus wide.

College students are an interesting niche for testing Foursquare. While they love their smart phones and Facebook, they are not in tune with much else in the social space.

However, Foursquare is similar to Facebook in the fact that it let’s you see up to the second information about your friends. Foursquare is simple in that respect. I can see college students, who are always looking for the next party, latching on to the “where is everybody at” aspect of Foursquare pretty easily.

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  • First MySpace, then Facebook, then Twitter then ?
    Foursquare is quite popular here in the SF Bay Area and I can see how my college age son and his friends would enjoy it. They are more into Facebook than Twitter, They never really moved over to Twitter. I sent a link to him tonight so I wll be interested to see if he likes it.
    Foursquare does have that addicting thing to it like Twitter did when it first started.
  • higgs
    Very cool video. I love the idea of not only giving the mayor a free drink, but the person behind them as well. It's a great way to spread the idea of Foursquare!
  • It's a perfect marriage for college kids other than the fact they only really utilize Facebook. I don't really care where my brother-in-law ate his last Taco during his lunch break downtown, which is precisely why the college kids should really embrace this one. Can you imagine how much cooler the after-bars would have been at college ?? No more drunk dialing or drunk texting... just foursquare it. Boom. Soco and RC. on my way...
    Frypan
  • Jason- awesome video. Very cool application of foursquare on a campus...
  • Thanks Ryan. I am eager to see where they go with it. The college student
    demo is an unpredictable and stubborn one when it comes to social.
  • Very difficult. But awesome if they can nail it.

    Ryan Graves
    312.860.7926
    Twitter: @ryangraves

    From my iPhone, pleeze dirsegard errors
  • Jason, I think you are right on the money! College is all about finding the latest hangout or hotspot and showing your friends that you're a trendsetter. Foursquare seems like a perfect match for the college crowd (and I'm sure once they get into it, it'll become the new addiction for millennials).

    Amber @wordsdonewrite
  • kaydubj
    Uh ... yeah. I understand your point, but I can't stand the hyperbole. What "College is all about" is getting an education that enables you to compete in the workforce.
  • Kaydubj, your point is well-taken. I meant what the SOCIAL part of college is all about. No higher education experience is complete without a healthy combination of studying AND socializing. As with most things, moderation is the key!
  • It might be a cool way to migrate people, but at its core, the value of foursquare is the database it mines. an email address plus what (specifically) interests you plus geomapping = gold to advertisers.
  • Have to agree with you Jim. It does seem to setup a perfect storm of
    targeting data. Hence why everyone is jumping onto geo-location (See
    Twitter, Facebook).
  • But in Twitter, you have to opt in to become part of it (see settings.) I like that it's not automatic. (though it's coming, I'm sure)
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