temporality over location

February 26th, 2010 • posts i've written

Foursquare is a tool that locates us in time and space – where we’re at and when we’re there.

But the where seems to be more important to us right now than the when.

But what if we prioritized when ahead of where?

(almost all of these are ideas that can actually be built on top of Foursquare’s API, feel free to steal)

Let’s play a game where we see who can continually stay out the latest … or get up the earliest … or be the first in to the office (imagine if your company used your Foursquare check-ins to reward the early birds).

I love going to a certain restaurant, but I’ve never been on a Saturday night before, let me look at an aggregate of check-ins to get an idea of when it gets the busiest during the night or compared to my usual Tuesday night.

I only want to see tips about the breakfast menu at this restaurant when they’re serving breakfast – stop tempting me with pancakes.

Mayors may visit more frequently – but who’s hanging out the longest? In other words, who else is spending four hours on Saturday bent over their laptop at my favorite coffee shop?

Let’s have an overnight scavenger/puzzle hunt across the city at 20 different locations and power a real-time leader board with updates of our progress.

I really want to spend more time visiting museums, libraries, or galleries this year – let me log my duration, from when I arrived to when I left, to measure how much time each week I’m spending towards accomplishing my goal. This also works for the gym.

Where is my social group spending their time this month vs last month, or this year vs last year?

What else can you think of?

Related posts:

1. round-up of location based services in adage
2. choosing my morning coffee
3. what kind of friends are we?

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