Interest Groups on Foursquare – January 2010 Ideas
The twentieth idea for my 365 social ideas is to combine the ideas of interest group websites like Meetup.com with location-aware services like Foursquare or Gowalla: Allow people with the same interests as you to see where you are available for talking about this interest. For instance, it is far more useful to know, that one of your friends, acquaintances or a stranger is at some place nearby and willing to talk about needle point with you, than just knowing where one of your friends is without actually having anything to use that information for.
Foursquare and related services all have the problem, that simply telling where you are does not necessarily mean, that anyone reading where you are, are welcome to join you. Some days ago, I read about someone checking at a local restaurant, two friends dropped by only to awkwardly leave again shortly after, as there weren’t room for them. By introducing interest groups and by selecting actively, that the fact that you are at a certain location can be revealed to this interest group, you explicitly specify “and you are welcome to join me for discussion/networking/drinks/fun”.
Why?
Revealing your location in a more or less specific position is one thing, but adding the information “and I’m revealing this to you because..” is almost as important. Some simply do it for bragging purposes, some for being known as the party girl and so on – and some do it for networking/socializing purposes, and these users would benefit from being able to attract like-minded people for heated discussions and sharing secrets about dog breeding, spelunking equipment or JavaScript libraries.
What’s next?
Do with this idea whatever you like – expand, implement, trash or forget. Just remember, that if you use it in anyway make sure to attribute me according to the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, that all these 365 Social Ideas are published under.
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Category: Games, January 2010 Ideas, Mashup Comment »