Practicum 2- Maddie

Since my presentation is coming up, I thought I would start doing some actual research about my topic, foursquare. Like I said before, foursquare is a locative service that is usually an application on mobile phones like a Blackberry or iPhone. Depending on your current location, you can "check in" wherever you are, gaining "badges" and "mayorships" of certain places. After visiting the foursquare website, I learned a couple of things in the "about" section. First, I learned that foursquare was launched in 2009. Here's a tidbit from the website about the program's functions: "foursquare is a mobile application that makes cities easier to use and more interesting to explore. It is a friend-finder, a social city guide and a game that challenges users to experience new things, and rewards them for doing so. Foursquare lets users "check in" to a place when they're there, tell friends where they are and track the history of where they've been and who they've been there with ". After reading this quote on the website and reflecting on my own use, some of this seems to be true, yet I don't really understand how the program "makes cities easier to use and more interesting to explore". Personally, I find the program to be overwhelmingly simple. There's really nothing much to do besides mark your location and see where other people are, which sometimes can be entertaining, but what's the point really? In these next few days, my goal is to do something new on foursquare and see if I can make it a little more exciting somehow.