When I first heard of foursquare my initial thoughts were on the lines of “how ridiculously useless is this?” But I sat on that notion for a few days and then gave it a whirl, fighting off the urge to write about it until I gave it some time. The I ended up writing this post and I plan to do more.

Now this evening I came across an article about foursquare that shares my sentiment, somewhat. It’s kind of blasts foursquare w/o giving it a fair shake but it does make some valid points. It’s on gawker call, If you use foursquare you are an annoying jackass.

Anyhow, I think there are some potential merits and in fact we will be incorporating foursquare in a new app we are rolling out in April for AutoConversion.

@Patrick thanks for chiming in. Think I should clarify my suggestion for dealers to advertise their use or presence on foursquare. I wasn’t suggesting for dealers to irrelevantly share their location but to maybe include links to their profile and venue URL in things like email signatures and profile links, etc. Hope that is more clear cos I am with you on the inundation of useless and irrelevant information sharing going on.

The only thing that I don’t agree with is your suggestion in #5. The firehose of information that these real-time services produce is flooding the social web in my opinion. The cross pollination of these services makes the experience fragmented. I’ve hidden the Facebook Newsfeed and Unfollowed multiple people on Twitter in the past 2 weeks that are avid Oversharers on foursquare. If the information is relevant (ie Try the Ribs @ Big Fatty’s BBQ!) then it is value. Letting the world know that you’re back at Wal-Mart for the 4th time in 3 days isn’t helping anyone.

Eric – I love the idea of leveraging retailers being asleep at the wheel to build your brand. If you’re leading the charge (which you are), why not? Thanks for sharing these tips!