Foursquare hits Dublin

Foursquare launched in Dublin yesterday. For those of you who don’t know anything about it, it’s effectively a Twitter style notification service which allows you to ‘check in’ at various locations around the city – cafes, bars, restaurants etc. Every time you do this, a message is pushed out to your friends telling them where you are. The guys behind Foursquare – some of whom were behind Dodgeball – which was mothballed by Google not so long ago – have made it sticky by allowing you to effectively compete with people. If you hang out at one place all the time, you can become the ‘mayor’ of that bar/cafe/location by checking in frequently. You can also earn badges based how often you check in, when you check in and so on.

It’s a great idea. The Foursquare guys have gotten this up and running on a shoestring budget, and the word of mouth they’ve received to this point has been amazing. They’re prime examples of what Niall talked about the other day – you have to bust your ass in order to get something up and running. it would have been easy for people to have gotten disheartened by the Dodgeball experience, but Dennis and Naveen refined the idea, made it better and have now built something new that will undoubtedly be acquired by one of the bigger players within the next two or three years. I can already see a whole bunch of early adopters signing up for the service and mentioning it on their blogs, on Twitter and elsewhere. I’m guessing it won’t be too long before some of us are competing to see who’ll be mayor of the Stags Head.

At the moment, pubs, clubs, restauants and cafes are really feeling the pinch. I live in Temple Bar, and just by listening out the window in the evening, I can tell you that there are far fewer people on the streets than there were a year ago. Hallowe’en night was really quiet in town. Places are struggling. You can tell that simply by looking at all the special offers that are on display in pubs and restaurants. I’ve become quite the fan of decent early bird menus, and Menupages has certainly become a happy hunting ground for me.

I’m hoping that cafe owners, publicans, restaurateurs take notice of Foursquare and make use of it. Encourage early adopters to tip along to your premises by posting special offers for the mayor of that place – or discounts for people with certain badges. It might seem like small fry at the moment, but you’re going to be talking to a small audience of influencers – people who blog, people who write for papers, the kind of people that Malcolm Gladwell calls Mavens. It’s pretty simple to do. And the way things are right now, if it means a few more bums on seats, and a few more covers for dinner or pints served, it will add up. Add to that the fact that I think Foursquare could actually be more popular than Twitter for a lot of people – specifically because it has that stickiness and money saving built in, and you could be onto a winner…