At the South by Southwest Music Festival, Foursquare created several specialized badges that people could acquire by checking in all over the place.
Businesses register with Foursquare, but people also enter their own homes, streets, and hangouts, so that when you check in to a particular place you can see what other people have to say about it, and even who else is there.
Even better with sites like Foursquare, check in to a location when you are leaving it or when you are safely home.
For each check-in that you do on Foursquare, you'll be asked whether you want to share it on Twitter.
For more information, visit the Foursquare support page.
Foursquare is an application that changes that question just a little bit, asking "Where are you right now?"
Foursquare will let businesses advertise specials, not only for people checking in at their location but also "nearby".
If Foursquare badges were only about getting little graphics, it would probably not be as successful as it is.
If you check in often enough, you can even become "Mayor" of a particular place, which is only one of the many Foursquare badges available.
If you just want to be able to keep tabs on your friends, Google Latitude or Foursquare may be perfect for your needs.
Many beautiful, vintage foursquare style homes and bungalows were constructed from the popular kit homes of that era.
Sign up for a Foursquare account if you haven't already done so.
Some businesses like Starbucks have created "Barista" badges in cooperation with FourSquare, which customers can earn by showing up at the coffee shop.
Some businesses offer specials that can only be found through Foursquare, for example.
The added incentive of saving money just contributes to the fun of earning Foursquare badges.
The biggest shortcoming of Foursquare is that each user has to "check in" to each venue to update his or her location, unlike the passive updating done by Verizon Family Locator and Google Latitude.
The creativity of the Foursquare team has created an amazing variety of badges not only for places but also for events and even specific people.
The Foursquare phenomenon is a great example of social media at work.
To add your Twitter account to Foursquare, you'll need to visit the Settings page after you log into your Foursquare account.
While sites like Foursquare, Gowalla and Brightkite can be fun to share location with friends, they can let not-so-good people know where you are not, potentially opening you up to be robbed or worse.