Why I’m Quitting Foursquare (and why no one cares)

I’m a firm believer that a social network is only as good as the people who inhabit it.

Facebook is littered with my friends, Twitter is filled with a mix of interesting people, friends and a plethora of crazy people that make logging on several times a minute worthwhile.  However, for me, Foursquare is filled with none of the above.

Granted, I have a handful of my Twitter contacts on there, but rather than provide me with useful insights or comedy parking moments (you know who you are), all I see is where they work, where they get their morning coffee or where they lunch, which in all honesty, makes me feel a little stalkerish.  On the other hand, any stalkers who care to look can find out where I work or which supermarket steals absurd amounts of my money for mediocre sandwiches at lunchtime.  My fear is that they will use this info to go into said supermarket and buy out all the sandwiches, leaving me with the bottom of the barrel cheese and onion monstrosity which can always be found lingering after the lunchtime rush.

As for my Mayorships? I hereby relinquish thee to anyone who cares to check-in where I work, where I used to work, or where I occasionally shop.

Will anyone miss me?  Will anyone’s league table feel more baron without me?  Will anyone sit there chugging a skinny latte and think, “Where is this Joe chap I used to see so much of?” If their enthusiasm has waned anything like mine, I doubt it.

So as quickly as I hopped on the location bandwagon, I shall now hop off.

And don’t come looking for me, you don’t know where I am.

Joe x

Give me £10 and I’ll let you read my blog

With the Times, NY Times and countless magazines charging for content online, I’ve been thinking, why the hell should I just give my opinions away for free? If I had a penny for every time I’d published a poorly worded article online I’d have a bucket-load of pennies. Maybe even enough to buy an even fancier bucket. With bluetooth or something.

Where do I see myself in 5 years time?

Hold on, a thought occurs. There’s always going to be some communist who’s going to give away exactly the same opinion for nothing. Still, despite being exactly the same, my opinion is clearly of a much higher standard than that other guy’s. So surely people will still pay for mine even if it’s free elsewhere right? Right? Hey, where are you going?

Wait, come back! OK, I concede, after having thought about it for a little bit, maybe I’ll keep my blog free for now. If I started charging I’d probably lose my ten regular readers for one paying reader. On the other hand, what am I waiting for? Cough up the cash or get the hell outta here!

To continue reading this article, please hand over your wallet, passport, home address and shoe size…

Wetherspoons offers backing to the Swarm

 

Wetherspoons recently announced their backing to foursquarestival‘s UK first super swarm attempt by offering up The Bank House (new ‘spoons) in Cheltenham as a venue for the attempt.

It’s great news that Super Swarm have backing from such a large company as ‘spoons, who are near enough going to guarantee themselves an extra 250+ (hopefully even more) people through their doors on Saturday October 9th 1-4pm. One wonders though, did any independant locations come forward for this? I’m sure many places must be crying out for an extra 250 punters.

Regardless of who’s hosting, the interesting thing for me will be putting a face to all those tweets I see every day, and of course being part of a UK first! 

@4squarestival is the brainchild of Holly Knowlman from @DirtyEnid and Andy Thorne from @jealousdesign, while there’s a whole team working on the Super Swarm including @AdrianEXG, @glos365, @SolutionMania and @jonnop not to mention the bucket loads of followers on Twitter RT-ing the message to all corners of Cheltenham and beyond!

For more info click here.

Joe

p.s forgot to mention the offers that Wetherspoons are laying on for the day to people checking in!