Finding new restaurants in your area with Foursquare

Finding new restaurants in your area with Foursquare

 

Looking for something new to do on a Friday evening? Use Foursquare to help you find what is going on around you.

 

Foursquare is a social network that lets you connect with people around you based on what they have been doing. Foursquare is available on Windows Phone, Android, iPhone and Blackberry. Whenever you visit a restaurant or a club, open the Foursquare app and check in to the place. Your check in will help Foursquare determine what the popular spots in your neighborhood are. Based on the number of check ins and likes a place receive, Foursquare can rank the popularity.

 

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Business owners can take advantage of this by publishing their specials on Foursquare. When somebody is looking for a place to eat or something to do, Foursquare will display a list of specials that is available close to them.

Apart from using Foursquare as a means to find things to do, you can also play it like a game. Each check in you do rewards you with points. The number of points you get for a check in differs for each check in, for example, if you check into a place you have never been before you get 5 points. There are a whole bunch of different reward modifiers and each time you check in it is a kick to see what you are rewarded with.

The points that you win are tallied together and compared to your friends and you are ranked against them on a leaderboard.

Immediately when you talk about sharing your location with other people it raises some concerns regarding your privacy. Can other people use it to stalk you? Luckily they have a block user function that will block undesirable people from seeing your location.

Now that you have blocked all your previous ex-boyfriends, let’s get back to the fun. If you are the person to check into a place the most in a two month period, you will become the mayor of that place. Have fun trying to steal your friends’ mayorships.

On your quest to become the ultimate mayor you will also unlock different badges. There are badges for people that like to try different restaurants, there are badges for people that like the great outdoors and then there are a few badges for people that like to do weird things – like find a store that sells vinyl records or check into a library after 11 o’clock at night.

Foursquare is a fun way to make mundane travels around a bit more exiting.