Archive for category Foursquare Help

Linking foursquare with Facebook Profile

Posted by dwaynekilbourne in 4SqTIPS, Foursquare Help on May 30, 2011

As many know, foursquare allows its users to link their Twitter and Facebook profiles. For many, this feature is great; these users like the option to share check-ins on these two major networks. Personally, I have both (Twitter and Facebook) linked to my foursquare profile, but I have heard a number of people experience an issue with their Facebook link. Some users have had their Facebook profile connected for some time, and the share functionality was working very well since the day they linked the two profiles together, but many have found that the link somehow became broken. In these cases, a foursquare user would check-in somewhere with the Facebook share option engaged and think he or she was successfully pushing that check-in to his/her Facebook profile. Later, he or she would look back at the Facebook profile to find nothing posted. Many savvy foursquare users would then check their settings to make sure that everything looked right, and many of them would notice that the connection seemed to be working. So, why wasn’t it posting correctly? Well, I am not sure if it was an issue with the Facebook profile, with the foursquare profile, or a combination of the two, but I have a simple way to fix this issue. To resolve this issue, I have found the following steps to be successful:

1. Using your desktop browser of choice, log into your Facebook profile

2. Using a new browser tab, log into your foursquare profile

3. Click on the Settings link (located in the upper right side of foursquare profile page)

foursquare settings link

4. Once on the setting page, scroll down to the Linked Accounts section

foursquare linked accounts

5. Click on the “change” link that appears under the Linked To [your Facebook Profile name] area

6. Click the “UNLINK YOUR FACEBOOK ACCOUNT” link

unlink Facebook from foursquare

7. Finally, reconnect your Facebook profile in the same way you did long ago (accepting all Facebook sharing permission requests)

Essentially, this refreshes your connection, and your next check-in share should work just fine. Of course, I highly recommend that you give it a try as soon as you can so you know that it is working. For example, if you check-in at your home, go ahead and share it on Facebook. If the check-in works, you can always go back and delete that Facebook update in your newsfeed. Well, I hope that helps. As always, keep those foursquare questions coming; let us at Foursquare Help know if this solution worked for you!

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Global Venues: Good Idea or bad?

Posted by dwaynekilbourne in Foursquare Help, Fun on March 14, 2011

Foursquare, the world’s most popular location-based mobile platform, now has over 7.5 million users. It’s recent and continued growth has made it a key ingredient in many people’s and organization’s social media mix. Its growing popularity is attracting more and more national media attention; furthermore, foursquare is continuing to innovate by adding new application features for consumers (like explore), adding new tools for claimed businesses (like additional special capabilities), creating new badges (like the many offered at SXSW), and updating their point system.

Now that there are over 7.5 million users, we are finding more and more people looking for ways to learn more about foursquare. Some have found the increasingly popular podcast from AboutFoursquare (that is usually recorded Sunday evenings and posted every Monday morning) and the great TweetChat #4sqCHAT, the Twitter chat session started by @4sqINDY that is held over Twitter (globally) at 9pm EST (GMT -5:00) each and every Monday. Yet, others still do not know! So, how can we inform and engage these people? Read the rest of this entry »

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Universities on Foursquare

Posted by Chris Jacobs in Foursquare Help on November 15, 2010

University participation has started to become a big thing on Foursquare. Universities can use Foursquare as a marketing tool and reach out to both current and prospective students.

Foursquare has also released five special college badges that can only be earned at participating colleges. We’ve put together a list of all the universities on Foursquare to let you know where you can earn these badges and as a quick reference to find all the universities who are on Foursquare.

If you know of a university that is on foursquare that we have neglected to include in our list, please leave a comment and we will add them!

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How to: Protect Your Privacy on Foursquare

Posted by Chris Jacobs in Foursquare Help on October 24, 2010

With a user base that now tops 3 million, Foursquare is quickly turning into a top player in the social media industry. Over and over again I hear the same complaint: how can I protect my privacy when I’m always sharing my current location? Won’t this open me up to being stalked or having my house robbed? The answer to those questions? No… but there are a few steps you need to take in order to fully protect your privacy:

1. Only accept people you trust as friends.

As a Foursquare user, you’re bound to get friend requests from people you have never met. Anyone who is following you on Twitter can easily find your Foursquare account, and if you are like me, you may have a lot of Twitter followers but do not wish to share your location with all of them. I would suggest that if you are worried about privacy, only accept requests from people you would fully trust knowing your location.

2. Do not list your home as a venue.

This is one of the most important steps you need to follow in order to fully protect your privacy. Checking-in on Foursquare may let people know you aren’t at home, but they can’t rob you if they don’t know where you live. Foursquare has recently implemented changes that prevent homes from showing up unless you have checked-in there before or if you are really close to that venue. This may remove venue clutter when checking-in, but it doesn’t protect your privacy.

3. Check your privacy settings on Foursquare.

You can check your current privacy settings by going to http://foursquare.com/settings. From here you can control whether you share your check-ins with Twitter and Facebook; read the next point for a better description of how this affects your privacy. One of the most important things to take note of on this page is your phone number and email address. You can choose to share either of these with your Foursquare friends. If you are concerned about privacy, be sure to turn these options off.

4. Be aware of your settings on Facebook and Twitter.

If you are sharing your Foursquare check-ins on Twitter and/or Facebook, you need to be aware of your privacy settings on those websites. If your Twitter account is unprotected and you publish your check-ins, everyone who looks at your tweets will have access to your location. Depending on who you share your status updates with on Facebook, you could possibly be allowing unwanted people to have access to your location. Here is my suggestion: don’t publish every check-in.  Only share your check-ins at large public venues and events, and you will have a lot less to worry about.

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I Want That Badge: Runkeeper!

Posted by Chris Jacobs in Foursquare Help, I Want That Badge, Indianapolis on September 30, 2010

Foursquare has recently teamed up with Runkeeper to reward you without checking-in. That’s right, you can earn a few Foursquare badges without having to check-in anywhere. Runkeeper is offering four badges for you logging activities in their iPhone app or on their website.

First you need to sign up for a RunKeeper account and link it to your Foursquare account. To link your account, go to the Settings page on RunKeeper and go to Sharing. If you have an iPhone, download the RunKeeper app. It will use GPS to track your activities. If you don’t have an iPhone, you need to manually keep track of your activity and then enter it into the website when you get home.

Here are the necessary activities to earn the four badges:

Warm Up:

To earn the Warm Up badge, you need to log 3 activities on 3 separate days.

5K:

To earn the 5k badge, you need to log a run of 5k (3.1 miles). Be careful though, if you enter a run that is too much over 5k you may not earn the badge. The exact limit isn’t known, but a 5 mile run will not earn the badge.

Marathon:

To earn the marathon badge, you need to log a run of 26.2 miles.

Over Achiever:

To earn the over achiever badge, you need to log 5 different activities.

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Why does Foursquare think I’m too far away?

Posted by Chris Jacobs in Foursquare Help on September 24, 2010

This post was made on the original Foursquare Help blog a couple weeks ago, and many users found it to be useful so I thought I’d bring it over here…

What’s more frustrating than attempting to check-in on Foursquare and realizing you aren’t getting any points/badges/etc. because Foursquare thinks you are too far away? This happens to many people who use Foursquare, but few know the causes behind this.

The first cause is that the venue’s pin location is in the wrong place. To see if this is the problem, find the venue you are having trouble with on the Foursquare website. Look to see where the pin is located. If the pin is not where the venue actually is, that’s your problem. If the pin is in the correct location, then you are affected by the other cause.

The other cause leading to Foursquare thinking you are too far away is poor GPS reception. Foursquare receives your GPS data from your mobile carrier. The quality of GPS reception you are getting depends on who your carrier is, and where you are currently located (read further explanation below). If you are in a big city with lots of cell towers, chances are your GPS will be pretty accurate. If you are in a rural area with not too many cell towers, there is a good chance your phone is having trouble locating exactly where you are, and is therefore passing along a less-than-acurate location to Foursquare.

How can you prevent this problem from occurring? If the GPS reception is your problem, I’m sorry but you’re out of luck. If the venue’s pin location is the problem, here is what you can do to fix it:

  1. Go to Google Maps. (maps.google.com)
  2. Find where the pin should be located, and right-click.
  3. In the menu that pops-up, click on ‘whats here?’.
  4. In the search box at the top, you will see the latitude and longitude of that location. Copy it.
  5. Leave a comment on this post with the latitude/longitude you just copied along with the venue’s url.
  6. Myself or another superuser will then fix the pin’s location, and that should prevent the app from thinking you are too far away from the venue.

Foursquare user Bob Boles has done a little bit of testing on the issue of GPS and here is what he has found:

I’d like to clarify some of the facts about GPS and it’s effects on Foursquare’s mobile application.

As stated on the Foursquare Support page (http://support.foursquare.com/home), modern mobile phones use various combinations of GPS, Wi-Fi, and cell tower triangulation to estimate a phone’s location. Depending on which of these signals is available, the reported location can be very accurate (down to 10m/30ft if GPS is turned on and you are outside in the open where satellites are visible) or wildly approximate (somewhere in a 5km/3mi circle).

I’ve personally conducted some testing on this issue, using a variety of phones on various carriers. IF your phone has true GPS and IF you have GPS turned on, you should not have a problem (unless, of course, the venue’s pin location is in the wrong place).

My test results indicate that Android phones (at least the Motorola Droid on Verizon and the HTC EVO on Sprint) are highly accurate. The Android OS even displays an icon up at the top of the display that indicates whether the GPS signal is “locked” (flashing indicates searching for satellites and solid indicates a lock). My testing of iPhones were not consistent. It seems the older iPhones struggle to lock onto the satellite signals, and there’s no icon to let you know the status. The new iPhone 4s do a much better job and have a navigation icon. And the older Blackberry phones seem to be the worst, at least the ones from Verizon. The newer Blackberry devices from Sprint seem to be OK.

Bottom line, a good GPS signal on your device is the key. Wi-Fi and cell tower triangulation methods are simply not going to nearly as accurate.

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Foursquare Community Networks

Posted by Chris Jacobs in Foursquare Help on September 23, 2010

Heading out of Indianapolis and want to find out the great Foursquare deals in other areas? Check out this comprehensive list of Foursquare community networks and links to their twitter (or blog) pages!

News/General Info:

United States:

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