Foursquare Captures Photos - Bad Idea?
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=18267386&server=vimeo.com&show_title=0&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0Note: This video was shot using a Flip video MinoHD 8GB camcorder
Transcription
I’ve had this video transcribed below for those who prefer to read rather than listen or watch. The transcription provided by me.Hey everybody! It’s Mark again from Tampa where it is 32 degrees. It’s cold here.I want to share with you a little something about Foursquare. Recently my Verizon Incredible was updated with a new version of the Foursquare app. And on that I noticed that they added a couple of new features. The biggest one was the ability to add photos to Checkin.So last night, I was out. Had wings with a buddy of mine and stopped by the World of Beer down the street to have a beer before going home. I checked in while I was there and I thought I’ll add a photo. And so I took a picture of their monstrous cooler where they have over thousands of beers—its kind of cool, artistic photo—I added it. It was cool. Nice photo. You go into the venue now, and now you see that there's a photo attached to it, I didn’t add any commentary but obviously you can add a little caption to in any of your photos. But what it did do for me is it made me think about what the addition of photos to the check-in mentality that is part and parcel to location-based social networking does.The good thing about it is obvious when you think about the emptiness of the check-in. There's really not a lot of value to them but when you can add a photo while you're out on a restaurant of the dish that you're enjoying of the staff at a bar and say, “Hey, let’s go to Ryan. This is Ryan, make sure he takes care of you. You tell him Mark sent you” and interiors of any kind of restaurant. “This is corner table where we love to have our Valentine’s dinner” what have you. Very cool things, tips and tricks, as they call it, very good to add that imagery, I’m sure video would be possibility to add to one day. Awkward things, but it then also so as a consumer, that’s what I think of. As an online marketing professional,I wonder about some of the shady side of this including if you go to a restaurant and you have a bad dish, you take a photo off of your phone that isn’t in the dish and added to that, what value does that do? Not only do you have to worry about the legitimacy of the photos but the value checking in to a hotel where things aren’t right—there’s mold, there's a cockroach—how does that help the business in a one time instance because the date of it is not as prominent. In Foursquare at least, it is when you look at things like review sites where you can have businesses responding and stuff plus, you know, if I go and take a picture of a cockroach somewhere else and then put it in at the local Holiday Inn, you know, I am damaging a business without any repercussions to me, maybe I am doing it as a joke.Likewise, taking pictures and posing it about it at an event or a park where you take pictures of a long line, airports, or malls, push people away and damage the business a lot more than they add any value to either the person posting the picture or the people that might view the picture. But more importantly is, like I said, as the consumer I worry—I enjoy these kind of features but as an online marketing professional I am responsible for over a hundred different businesses, I worry about privacy policy,I worry about someone coming into one of my practices taking pictures of other patients, staff, taking pictures of personal, private records, not only break the confidence reality of the other patients, and the staff, but also put you, as a business owner at risk for regulation violations, legal violations, and the like.I am all about all the new techniques and pushing above all for these technologies but this is one of the ones that make me nervous for some reason.I’d be interested to see what you think. Do you see more value in there?Or is this just something that could really be something in the long run amongst the other online marketing features?Give me a comment below and I appreciate it. I promise I’ll respond. Take care.