I have been playing with the location based game Foursquare over the past week, in preparation for talking about how Museums can use mobile technology.
Foursquare is a location-based game which describes itself as being ‘All about helping you find new ways to explore the city, discovering new places, doing new things and meeting new people.’
Foursquare basically lets you leave tips for friends and strangers in your favorite places, when someone else comes to that place, they can read the tips that you have left through Foursquare on their mobile phone.
Foursquare is growing in popularity and many museums and galleries are listed on the application. A lot of these institutions are taking steps to engage with those who use Foursquare and having spent a little more time using this application I want to share a couple of tips.
The image above is taken from the Foursquare account of The Pollak Library in the United States. The library has used the ‘TO-DO’ function on Foursquare to tell people more about what they offer, for example ‘ebooks’.
This is a really nice idea which I think could work brilliantly to create treasure hunts through museums, where the visitor has to tick off a list of twenty items in the collection which they have to track down in your collection.
The other route which I have found many institutions taking to encourage people to check in with them is to offer prizes to anyone who becomes a major (this happens when you check in the most in any one location). With Pratt Library, I believe they offered a tote bag as a prize.
Foursquare is being hyped as the next big thing, so it is worth checking out and thinking how you can engage with it’s users.
Have you used Foursquare for your museum, what tips do you have?