“ [Dont’ tell me what you are doing, tell me where you are] Twitter and Facebook ask users to answer the question: What are you doing right now? But for many urbanites in their 20s and 30s, two other questions are just as important: Where are you, and can I come join you? For them, a fast-growing social networking service called Foursquare is becoming the tool of choice. A combination of friend-finder, city guide and competitive bar game, Foursquare lets users “check in” with a cellphone at a bar, restaurant or art gallery. That alerts their friends to their current location so they can drop by and say hello. “It’s planned serendipity,” said Emily Woolf, 24, a strategic planner living in Brooklyn who checks in on Foursquare when she wants to grab coffee or a drink with friends. “At this point, I don’t even bother texting or calling my friends. I just check Foursquare to see if they’re nearby and go meet them.
October 20, 2009
