Will Longhini

Foursquare may be my favorite social network (sorry Path). I was talking with an ‘06 Miami alum the other night in Oxford and told him that I thought Foursquare was the most underrated social network. I believe things are going to change.

Things for Foursquare are going to change because Foursquare continually adds new features that users welcome with open arms. Unlike Facebook, and more recently Twitter, when Foursquare adds a new feature, bloggers and users alike rave about it; we can’t fathom how we interacted before without them! Foursquare’s latest feature may be its best yet.

Foursquare Radar and Explore are both pretty great features, Radar pinging users using the app on iOS and Android about places they may be interested in based on their location using GPS. BRILLIANT! It works really well, especially walking around neighborhoods in downtown Chicago when your first restaurant choice has a two-and-a-half hour wait for a table. Explore is neat, allowing you to find something interesting anywhere in the world with a few keywords. Those are both really great features but what users really want are menus.

Foursquare is bringing restaurant menus to its service.

We’ve partnered with the awesome start-up SinglePlatform to share over 13,000,000 menu items at almost 250,000 restaurants in major U.S. cities, with more on the way.

How awesome is that?

Foursquare is no longer the check-in app you use every once-in-awhile. Foursquare is now the go-to app to learn what types of interesting places are around you (even without having to open the app and search), what you can do in those places and what you can order. It also lets you see where your friends are and adds an element of gaming to the mix.

People often wonder why I use Foursquare instead of Yelp to look up new kinds of restaurants/bars/etc. to try out. I don’t trust Yelp. I’ve read too many stories or heard from friends who work for companies that are paid money to write positive reviews on Yelp. I trust Foursquare users; they’re actually using the service and writing down tips because they had a positive, or negative, experience. And even though my friends make fun of me for leaving tips on Foursquare, I feel like I’m paying it forward.

Menus make Foursquare one of the most well-rounded social networks around and one I hope more and more people will continue to sign up for and use regularly. Dens and his team are continuing to push the way we think of a social network. There’s a reason why Facebook has shut down its check-in feature.

Foursquare is not about letting everyone know where you are. It’s about building a community, sharing that community with others and exploring the things around you.

Foursquare helps you experience your world.

Please, download the Foursquare app now, on iPhone or Android, or check out the website. Add me as a friend and let’s explore one of the best social networks available.

[Foursquare blog]

“Is it still possible to access Wikipedia in any way?
Yes. During the blackout, Wikipedia is accessible on mobile devices and smart phones. You can also view Wikipedia normally by disabling JavaScript in your browser, as explained on this Technical FAQ page. Our purpose here isn’t to make it completely impossible for people to read Wikipedia, and it’s okay for you to circumvent the blackout. We just want to make sure you see our message.”

• The #MiamiU hashtag. I can stay connected to the Miami University world with current students, alumni and others talking about the university. This is the way hashtags are meant to be used.
• Instagram’s new Facebook integration. I still don’t like the links but I understand.
• Females defending UGG boots. Stop defending them. (Oops, this belongs on my previous post.)
• My new Twitter avatar from eightbit.me
• Possible Facebook integration in iOS 5.1 or later.
• Tweetbot
• Fun cover photos
• Educated debates

What do you think?

• Twitter users beginning a tweet with “@username” when it’s not a reply or only directed at that one person and that person’s followers. When you begin a tweet with “@username” only that person and people that follow you and that person can see it. If you want everyone to see it, include a space, _ or . in front of @username.
• Private Twitter accounts; what’s the point?
• People who think Twitter is used for telling people where you are or what you’re doing. People don’t tweet, “I’m pooping” or “cooking dinner” anymore. That was five years ago. Twitter is a great place to connect with people with similar interests, celebrities and to receive instant news.
• Instagram users who post pictures from weeks/months ago. “Insta” is in the name, as in instant.
• Pinterest
• Ridiculous hashtags
• Checking in to places on Facebook; use Foursquare.
• Klout
• LinkedIn most of the time
• People who think just because they use Facebook they are Facebook experts (you can probably include me in this).
• The “Popular” page on Instagram. Go back to MySpace with your duck faces.

Did I forget anything?

Motion control can be cool, but it only lasts for so long.

I played Kinect for an extended period of time, outside of the demo at Best Buy, this past Friday. It was pretty neat for the first hour or so and then it became pretty boring, just like the Wii before it. The sensor detects your motion fairly well, much better than I expected.

The problem I face when deciding whether or not to buy a Kinect for myself is can I justify the price for something I won’t use too often to play video games? Microsoft tried to answer that question by integrating Kinect’s voice and motion-sensing capabilities into the Xbox 360’s dashboard.

I can sit on the couch and say, “Xbox, play ‘How I Met Your Mother’” and it will go to the Netflix app and begin streaming HIMYM. If I tell it, “Xbox, search for CES coverage”, CES results on Bing will show up. That’s kind of cool and very sci-fi, futuristic-like. It’s also lazy and slow.

I don’t know about you but I like using a remote control. Now, not every remote is great; some have too many buttons, can’t control all your devices, or are unresponsive half the time (Apple TV remote). Remotes, in their most basic form, are easy to use and natural. Remotes are more natural, in controlling a television or set-top box, than voice or gestures.

With the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) occurring this week in Las Vegas, TV manufacturers, like Samsung, LG and Panasonic, are introducing displays with voice and facial recognition. They have Kinect-like motion control, gesture recognition and voice commands. Now you can record “The Bachelor” without having to navigate any menus or program listing guides.

I don’t know about you but I enjoy flipping stations at every commercial break or for hours on end on Saturday when there is nothing on. I don’t want to be waving to my TV every few seconds changing stations. I don’t want to be yelling at my cable box to go to the previous channel or telling my Vizio to turn the volume up… no down… down one more… up three…

Are companies like Samsung really implementing these features in their new television sets because people want to use them or because analysts stir up the pot with rumors that Apple is working on a real Apple TV with Siri-like features? How many people still use Siri on their iPhone?

Gesture recognition and voice control is cool with videogames, for an hour or so, but they don’t fit with general TV watching. TV manufacturers should invest in making their menus and remotes smarter and easier rather than dumping funds into controls a majority of consumers probably won’t use.

Besides, people still watch TV on their televisions?

I’m having a hard time trying to find the right medium to share all the photos, videos and links I, or someone else might, find interesting.

I post a lot of links to various things on Twitter, but I often find it gets lost and not all my friends have an account. If I think more people would enjoy what I found, I post it on Facebook because I know there’s a better chance of all my friends seeing it (and with lists I can direct certain posts to certain groups of people).

The problem is I begin to feel bad about how often I post, especially on Facebook. At times I feel I’m posting too much on Twitter but that’s really what Twitter’s medium has become: links and breaking news. If one of my followers feels I post too often or the posts are not relevant to them, they can unfollow my tweets fairly invisibly. With Facebook, your “followers” are more often than not your closer friends. If one of your friends unfriends you, it’s more noticeable and the reaction is quite different.

I don’t care if you think I post too often on Twitter. I do care if you feel I post too much on Facebook.

That brings me to another problem. I’ve contemplated numerous times about posting all the links and whatnot on this blog. My main concern is that when I write actual posts, such as the dating one, the Jeremy Roenick one or the Path one, I’d rather have those stand out and be easy to find than be cluttered up and lost among all the other links and videos.

That’s especially important to me during my current job search where I direct interviewers, prospects and others to this website to demonstrate some of my work.

So what this post really boils down to is, I need some advice. I can continue to just post all links to Twitter and include certain ones on Facebook just like I have been doing. I can begin to post links to my blog (through Tumblr) and have the ability to write descriptions, comments and reactions, with links going out to Twitter and Facebook. The last option is I can create a new blog, like Got A Sister, as a more traditional Tumblr page, or join a different site like Pinterest.

I’d like to know what you think of my posting style(s) and hear your ideas. What do you think I should do?