Foursquare a trend

SBS TV news has a silly news item each evening just after the sport. A few days ago this was about a trendy new web service called "Foursquare". What was essentially a five minute advertisement for the product, produced by BBC News showed people in the UK using the product. The application connects social networking to locations using smart phones. This allows people top say "I am in the cafe, who else do I know is here, or has been here, what do people think about it". I thought this was all nonsense, but then someone a few days later showed me the same application on their I phone, pointing out it was used at the Purple Pickle and last weekend's Bar Camp Canberra. This turns it from a dubious news beat up into a "trend".

I don't have a compatible smart phone, but signed up using the standard web interface. To my surprise I found that several local locations were already registered on the system, including the Purple Pickle and Bar Camp Canberra (although technically that is not a physical location). I added the ANU Computer Science and Information Technology building and the famous Room N101.