Grown Up Thinking

As the Mr Youth mayor on Foursquare, it is my duty and honor to write this blog post. My first experience with Foursquare was on July 29^th and within this short summer time span, I have become a full-fledged addict. Building off the concept of a location-based social networking application but adding a competitive angle by challenging users to compete against friends to earn points and badges, Foursquare just may be the new Twitter.

The service was created in March 2009 by Dennis Crowley, Harry Heymann and Naveen Selvadurai from its predecessor site, Dodgeball. The premise is simple. You check in at various venues around your major metropolitan city and get awarded points for your activity. Users are awarded badges for various completed tasks. For example, you can earn the School Night Badge (checking in after 3am on a week night) or the ever-coveted and elusive Douchebag badge (I’m not quite sure what you need to do to earn this one, but perhaps Jerpdavis can provide insight). The site takes it’s functionality a step farther than a Google Latitude or Loopt site by adding user-generated To Do and Tips lists, giving users insider information about a particular venue or location.

And just as with all the other social networking sites that I’ve felt strongly about from the very beginning (i.e.: Facebook & Twitter), I am finding myself in heated battles with friends and family defending the value of the site. While I don’t believe Foursquare will gain mainstream popularity like Twitter (my gauge for mass appeal being my mom, who’s on Facebook and at least has a Twitter account, but will never be on Foursquare), I do see the amazing opportunity the site provides.

Beyond it thrilling the social networking dork in me, businesses are now encouraging users to check-in to their venues and are awarding the people with free things (mostly drinks), which is smart. Since the site has the option of pinging both Facebook and Twitter with each check in, every time I go somewhere I am providing free advertising to almost 3,000 of my closest online friends.

Some more background on Foursquare in a great Mashable article by Jennifer Van Grove can be found here.

Though my own style proclivities veer more closely to the moody (frequently opting for the trifecta of black+booties+tousled hair, like this lovely lady), I found this great interactive-slash-mobile campaign for Ralph Lauren on PSFK today that might have me wearing a rugby shirt faster than you can say “sassy sartorialist.”

The long & short of it: consumers are given the chance to fully customize a Rugby jersey using either a free iPhone application or using a touchscreen window display at the Ralph Lauren store in Greenwich Village. Buy it, share it, post it to Facebook- it’s up to you. Finally, try it on for size by dropping your own photo into the image, and submit it to a public gallery.

Ultimately, it’s a great example of how brands can use mobile to drive to retail in an innovative way while giving fashion-friendly fans the chance to make a statement in fully personalized gear using technology.