Foursquare; Why?

I’ve made my point of view clear in the past on various social networking sites.  In most cases I’ve ended up eating my words, changing my mind and joining the site I’ve been so out spoken over.  I hated facebook with a passion – I’ve now had a profile for over a year. I didn’t see the point of Twitter – I had used it solidly for a few months and am grateful to say over 50 accounts are now ‘following’ me.

But foursquare? I really, really can’t see the point.

The aim of the site is to check yourself in to anywhere and everywhere.  It seems that if you check into somewhere nobody else has, you get points. If you check into somewhere more than anyone else, you get points.  What do points make; Prizes?  In the case of foursquare its a badge, a virtual badge, oh and yet another tweet to tell everyone.

That’s my biggest issue with foursquare; the users who decide to auto tweet their location when they ‘check in’.  My feed has been full of these, and I have had to stop following some otherwise interesting individuals as a result.  I have no interest that this person is now the “Mayor of The Horse & Groom Public House.”

The site pleaserobme.com highlights one danger of constantly checking yourself into places.  It tells the public at large one particular place you are not.  Perhaps even more worryingly, prolific check in’ers may be leaving themselves vulnerable to other dangers; mugging’s, sexual assault etc. It really doesn’t bare thinking about.

I’m fairly sure on this occasion, I won’t be changing my mind in the coming months and joining this silly network.

Do you have a foursquare profile?  What have I missed this time? Feel free to comment…