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Raise Your Emoji: Swarm from Foursquare is here

by on May.15, 2014, under Location-Based Services

Swarm by Foursquare
Swarm (just now available on the App Store), the new dedicated check-in app from Foursquare, has finally arrived. It’s a solid replacement for checking in using Foursquare. In addition, Swarm brings back several key features that Foursquare had removed from it’s core app as the Foursquare app moved to be more and more discovery oriented (versus checking in). Here are some of the major features that I’m most excited about:

1. Mention friends in a check-in without checking them in – Foursquare quietly removed this feature last year, leaving only the ability to mark a friend as “checked-in” with you. This meant that you could no longer mention a friend in a check-in who was not actually with you and instead had to tag them in the comments area. This reduced the community “feel” of Foursquare. People could no longer connect with each other by simply mentioning each other in a check-in text. Swarm has brought this feature back. Simply mention a friend in the check-in and then tap on their picture in the bottom to toggle whether they are being marked as a checked in with you or just being mentioned in the check-in.

2. The return of the feed – Another major feature that Foursquare removed last year was the feed. This was a feature that was introduced many versions ago and enabled you to see a scrolling feed of your friend’s check-ins as they were made instead of just where your friends were last. This brought the Foursquare community even closer. With the feed, friends can watch each other’s days progress and see checkins that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. Foursquare has brought this feature back with Swarm.

3. Plans – There used to be an app called Forecast that integrated with Foursquare and let you share what your plans were with your friends. Friends could mark that they were interested in joining you for those plans and it was all integrated with Foursquare venues and check-ins. I used it regularly and found it to be very useful. Unfortunately that app shut down and nothing ever rose to the occasion to take it’s place- until now. Swarm delivers what I feel is the spiritual successor to Forecast: a feature called Plans With plans you are able to post a note saying that you plan to do something (presumably tied to your current location) and your friends can say that they’d like to join you. You’re able to tag venues to your plan (type the @ symbol and then type the name of the venue- only venues nearby will show up in the search results though) and tag friends as well (essentially inviting them to join you). I can’t wait to try this out with friends and see how this feature evolves.

4. Location-based sort of friend’s list – Over the years, Foursquare has struggled with the best way to display what your friends are doing near you while also displaying what you friends around the world are doing. With Swarm, Foursquare has finally nailed it. Swarm’s home screen shows your friends who have recently checked in and sorts them by how close they are based on their last location share- making it very easy to see where all of your friends are no matter where they are in the world. It also displays stickers and Emoji (more on that later) as well as whether there are comments or likes a friend’s most recent checkin. This is a welcome addition and when combined with the feed I feel that this enables you to stay more closely in touch with more people than before. Plus there is a hidden search feature on the home screen that you can access by scrolling the list down. You can now search for a specific friend in case you have a very long friend list or to see a friend’s last location in case they haven’t checked-in in a while.

5. Stickers – Gone are badges. May they rest in peace. All of your old badges are still accessible but Foursquare is no longer awarding new ones. Instead Swarm has introduced stickers. These are decorations that you can add to your profile icon when you check in. The sticker is then displayed on your avatar on the homepage as well as in the feed. Foursquare has said that you will be able to unlock stickers, similar to unlocking badges, based on certain situations. I feel that this is a great addition to the check-in experience and brings some fun back to checking in.

6. Emoji – Foursquare has fully embraced Emoji with Swarm. Now with Swarm if you add emoji to a checkin text the Emoji will display on your avatar like a sticker. Note that if you have a sticker selected with your check-in that the sticker will override the emoji. This feature brings another layer of fun to checking in and I feel that it will make emoji even more popular.

7. Complete data transfer PLUS check-in search – Even though this is a new app, Foursquare has brought forward all of your old data. In addition, they have added the ability to search your check-in data for the first time. Just tap your profile icon and then use the search box at the top of your check-in history to find out if you’ve been somewhere before and when you were there.

8. Other awesome – Foursquare is also keeping features like sharing insights after a check-in, the ability to comment and “like” a check-in, the ability to share check-ins on Twitter and Facebook and other core basic features. Other major features they’ve introduced include Neighborhood Sharing (the option to automatically share which town you are currently in) as well as the ability for mayorships to be awarded based on you checking in at a place more often then your friends (versus only one mayor that is awarded to the person who checks in the most overall, friends or no). Personally I’d prefer to see BOTH an overall mayor AND a “best of your friends” mayor. I am excited that mayorships are still around in some form and I’m happy to know I can still compete with my friends to see who has checked in somewhere the most. Neighborhood Sharing I’m taking a wait and see approach. I think it has a lot of potential because it will enable friends to passively share their location, keeping people more closely in touch automatically. In addition, by choosing to only identify which town or city you are in, Foursquare seems to have finally solved the challenge that automatic checkins have always posed, which was determining what the right location was to automatically check the user into.

Wrapping things up, yes- there are no more points (SADFACE). There are no more check-in specials (this one I’m really hoping to see come back somehow). There are also many unanswered questions (such as will there be a way for brands to translate their presence into Swarm and have “followers” like they could with Foursquare?). But overall I’m thrilled with Swarm and I’m very excited that so many of the community-oriented features that had been removed from Foursquare are now back and better than ever in Swarm. I can’t wait to see how awesome it becomes once everyone moves over from the Foursquare app and begins checking in. See you there!

Swarm Doge

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Slides from my lecture about Salesforce.com at UNH

by on Jan.06, 2014, under Salesforce

UNH SalesforceMy friend Doug Henderson asked me to be a guest lecturer for the Information Systems and Enterprise Integration masters class he teaches at UNH. Doug asked me to speak about Salesforce.com and of course I accepted. For those who attended the class, or anyone who is interested, I have posted my slides on Google Drive for reference.

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Portsmouth, NH #MozCation By The Numbers #03801moz

by on Jul.25, 2012, under Social Media

SEOMoz, an excellent Search Engine Optimization (SEO) resource, is having a contest for cities. The winning city will get a meetup/visit from the SEOMoz crew. A variety of factors will be used to determine a winner but basically it comes down to convincing SEOMoz that your city is the best one for them to come visit. It’s a great opportunity to make a name for your city online. I am helping, along with dozens of others, to get Portsmouth, NH noticed by SEOMoz and hopefully selected as the winning city.

Why is Portsmouth a great city to be selected? Let’s talk numbers for a moment. Take a look at the charts and graphs below. They provide a picture of MozCation-related social media activity from all the cities across the world involved in the contest. As you can see, thanks to a strong community effort, Portsmouth is very well represented in these world-wide charts. I think it’s remarkable and certainly SEOMoz worthy!

Ready for more reasons why? Here’s some qualitative reasons and to close the deal be sure not to miss this killer video on why Portsmouth, NH is a great city for Mozcation!

#1 – The Archivist’s Top Users by Tweet Count for #MozCation [source]. (arrows in red indicate Portsmouth Twitter users) EDIT: I need to add an arrow next to @HarborGuide on there!

#2 – Tag Cloud from Radian6 over the last 30 days for the term #MozCation. (arrows in red indicate Portsmouth related content)

#3 – Media posts by view count graph from Radian6 over the last 30 days for posts with the term #MozCation. (arrows in red indicate Portsmouth related content)

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Can Google Save Itself From Paid Inclusion?

by on May.30, 2012, under The Internet

This post is in response to Danny Sullivan’s Marketing Land article, “Once Deemed Evil, Google Now Embraces ‘Paid Inclusion’.”

I can clearly recall the first time I read Sergey Brin and Larry Page’s 1998 Stanford-published paper, The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine. I reveled in the idea they shared at the end, buried in the ominously named appendix, Appendix A: Advertising and Mixed Motives. The idea was simply that paid inclusion (advertising) made for a bad search engine and that the best search engine would have none. This beautiful and simple idea meant that the playing field should be level when it comes to search. That ideas, not money, are the way.

Their idea, that any person could create great content and appear at the top of search results, and only better content should be able take away their position, was amazing. It came at a time when you had to really pay to play with the likes of Altavista, Lycos, etc. When Google came on the scene and said “anyone can play” it was truly revolutionary and ultimately was something that helped Google change the world.

Now, years later, Google finds itself on the paid inclusion path. Though they have taken just a small step, it is a very bad move. Paid inclusion is a slippery slope for a public company like Google. As they are under pressure to continue their growth rate, I would expect them to take more steps down this paid inclusion path in order to find additional sources of revenue. If they continue down this path then we could be looking at the end of Google as we’ve known it.

They need to stop this now. Google needs to abandon the paid inclusion path. I implore Larry, Sergey and all of Google to stop for a moment and re-read their own words. Perhaps in them they can find the right direction and recapture some of the momentum they have lost.

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Slides from my eCoast Mobile Summit presentation on mobile for retail

by on Jul.14, 2011, under Technology

Here are the slides from my presentation for the 2011 eCoast Mobile Summit on mobile for retail. Get the slides here download[zip].

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Slides from my SMBNH Presentation on Local Business Use of foursquare

by on May.20, 2011, under Location-Based Services

Here are the slides from my presentation for Social Media Breakfast NH May 2011 on local business use of foursquare and location-based services. Get the slides here download[zip].

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My SXSW 2011 Photo Blog

by on Mar.19, 2011, under Technology

I just got back from SXSW Interactive 2011. What an amazing experience. I learned so many new things, met tons of awesome people and had a great time. Here’s my experience there, as told through my iPhone camera and iPhone screenshots, enjoy!

foursquare American Express SXSW Deal

foursquare American Express SXSW Deal
News broke of this deal with American Express as I was on the way to the airport in the C&J bus. Pretty cool!

Even the rental cars are bigger in Texas

Even the rental cars are bigger in Texas
This is the rental they handed me on the ground in San Antonio (had to book a last minute earlier flight due to scheduling of my Foursquare Day kickoff event on Friday). It wasn’t bad to have this to cruise around Austin with for a night.

foursquare court on the Pepsi MAX lot

foursquare court on the Pepsi MAX lot
Here you could play foursquare with foursquare (and win a tshirt) – a huge leap up from what they had last year and by far my favorite place to go and relax in between sessions. Free Pepsi MAX and hanging out with the foursquare team? YES PLEASE!

Celebrate Foursquare Day Cards

Celebrate Foursquare Day Cards
These are the cards that Infinite Imaging donated to Foursquare Day – we put them out on the foursquare swag table next to the foursquare court and I stopped by every day to make sure there was always plenty on hand.

Foursquare Day Kickoff Swag

Foursquare Day Kickoff Swag
This was the swag table at the Foursquare Day kickoff event I organized – we also gave out foursquare tshirts for playing foursquare just like foursquare did at their foursquare court (phew, that’s alot of foursquares!).

Playing Foursquare at the Foursquare Day Kickoff

Playing Foursquare at the Foursquare Day Kickoff
If you made it up to the fourth square (the mayor square) you got a foursquare tshirt. Included in this picture: Antony Francis and Alan Danzis (I think) playing foursquare while Miss Destructo looks on.

Helping foursquare

Helping foursquare
I got to meet almost the entire foursquare team in Austin (and they rock!). Here foursquare’s Nina Yiamsamatha and I bust out our laptops and do some superuser editing to fix some urgent issues with SXSW panel venues.

SXSW Austin Convention Center

SXSW Austin Convention Center
Here is the epicenter of SXSW, the Austin Convention Center or ACC for short

Seth Priebatsch Keynote Ticket

Seth Priebatsch Keynote Ticket
This year the keynotes were on the 4th floor, and to help keep the lines organized they gave out cards to ensure people who stood in line got in.

Seth Priebatsch Keynote

Seth Priebatsch Keynote
Had great seats for the Seth Priebatsch keynote, here he talked about the game layer. Read more about his keynote here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/pda/2011/mar/14/sxsw-2011-scvngr-seth-priebatsch

Tiger Blood / StartupBus

Tiger Blood / StartupBus
Sitting next to me at the keynote was John Bejarano from the StartupBus and his Isitgood4.me startup. He showed off his secret to surviving SXSW: Tiger Blood.

Inside the ACC

Inside the ACC
People, moving, constantly.

foursquare Baby Stroller

foursquare Baby Stroller
Spotted a mom and her little girl putting foursquare stickers on their stroller at the foursquare court at SXSW. So cool!

Sharing a Charge At SXSW

Sharing a Charge At SXSW
Enjoying some BBQ at Iron Works (THE BEST!) and letting my table-mates charge their iPhones on my Splash Intense battery pack. It’s got more than enough juice to go around!

American Express foursquare Reward Push Notification

American Express foursquare Reward Push Notification
Because I checked in on foursquare and used my American Express I got a $5 rebate on my Iron Works purchase. Yeah, I can’t think of anything cooler either! In background: SXSW veteran Ramon Vawda’s twitter profile, whom I randomly met in line at Iron Works and got to have BBQ with.

foursquare's Austin Unlocked Party

foursquare’s Austin Unlocked Party
This was the scene at the foursquare party at the Cedar Street Courtyard. It had lines going around the block *on both sides of the building*.

Pee-wee Checks In At The foursquare Party

Pee-wee Checks In At The foursquare Party
Wasn’t surprised to see this pop-up on my phone. I didn’t see him though.

foursquare's Groupon Style Discount

foursquare’s Groupon Style Discount
They had a special at the foursquare party that unlocked if 500 or more people checked in. That wasn’t a problem!

Is it live or is it Android?

Is it live or is it Android?
Sometime’s its hard to tell- oh wai (was on a tshirt I spotted)

Legos at SXSW

Legos at SXSW
Legos, everywhere. Not sure what’s going on here, but they were thinking hard about what they were doing.

Geo-Fencing Panel at SXSW

Geo-Fencing Panel at SXSW
The CEO of Placecast gave us a download on the latest location-based tools for mobile marketing.

Bacon Cone SXSW11

Bacon Cone SXSW11
One of my favorite parts of SXSW is the bacon cones. Yes, you read that right- cones made out of bacon. This one has chicken cooked in bacon, breaded with captain crunch with some strips of bacon thrown in for good measure. Here’s a picture of how Bacon Cone at SXSW10 looked. Seems consistently awesome!

Christopher Poole Keynote

Christopher Poole Keynote
Had seats near the very front for the Christopher Poole keynote. Here’s more on his keynote: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/13/christopher-poole-4chan-sxsw-keynote-speech

Charging the Splash Intense

Charging the Splash Intense
Due to a mixup my Splash Intense was not charged for one night and it died. Fortunately I had my TRANS4M AC / DC USB Charger as a backup. You can throw any power you want on it and it’ll charge USB devices. It takes AC, Cigarette Lighter DC, 9 volt and AA batteries.

SXSW Future15 Mobile Panels

SXSW Future15 Mobile Panels
This was the room to be at at SXSW if you were into mobile. Back to back to back panels on mobile web, apps, design, development, strategy, platforms, NFC, what’s next- you name it.

Aboutfoursquare.com Podcasting: Eric Leist and Chris Thompson

Aboutfoursquare.com Podcasting: Eric Leist and Chris Thompson
Had the opportunity to guest host the Aboutfoursquare.com podcast at SXSW. Here’s Eric and Chris during the recording, talking about, what else, foursquare. You can listen to the podcast we recorded here.

Aboutfoursquare.com Podcasting:  Alan Danzis, Eric Leist and Chris Thompson

Aboutfoursquare.com Podcasting: Alan Danzis, Eric Leist and Chris Thompson
During the podcast Eric ran the show and Alan, Chris and I relaxed in deep concentration while we waited for Eric to call on us. Either that or we were tired from our day at SXSW. Yeah, one of those :)

Firefox Mobile's Real Life Badge

Firefox Mobile’s Real Life Badge
Not only did you get a nice foursquare badge for checking in at their ice cream truck (and did I mention, get ICE CREAM?) they also gave away these cool analog badges to boot!

Firefox Mobile Ice Cream Truck

Firefox Mobile Ice Cream Truck
Be sure to check in on foursquare!

Firefox Mobile Ice Cream Truck Menu

Firefox Mobile Ice Cream Truck Menu
The Awesome Bar. Would you order anything else?

Pizzeria Papparazzi‎

Pizzeria Papparazzi‎
A hole in the wall pizza place off 6th street in Austin. The inside is sharpified. Can’t recommended the food but the sharpie-fied walls are a spectacle.

The CMajor and Her Frisbee

The CMajor and Her Frisbee
We got handed frisbees by groupflier (a group texting app) while in line for bacon cones. Afterwards I texted my Beluga pod about the experience. *zing*

foursquare Golden Ticket Badge Unlock Display

foursquare Golden Ticket Badge Unlock Display
foursquare was randomly giving out “golden ticket” badges that would get people into a special concert they were throwing with Pepsi. Here golden ticket holders CMajor and Chris Thompson pose with the sign.

SXSW11 = iPads

SXSW11 = iPads
iPads were EVERYWHERE. It didn’t hurt that Apple opened a special popup store for the event to sell the iPad 2. Forget your laptop at events like these, touch devices are the only way to make it happen at SXSW.

foursquare Golden Tickets

foursquare Golden Tickets
These are what the golden tickets looked like that foursquare was giving away to golden ticket badge holders.

Seaholm Power Plant Smokestacks

Seaholm Power Plant Smokestacks
This is the venue for the foursquare golden ticket badge holders concert. Unusual and cool!

RVIP at SXSW

RVIP at SXSW
It’s a roving RV where you can sing karaoke (and earn a foursquare badge). It was parked outside of the golden ticket concert entrance. If I wasn’t about to go into the concert I would have taken it for a ride!

Inside the foursquare concert

Inside the foursquare concert
This was on the inside floor of the power plant. The power plant is inactive and used as a music venue in Austin. Very cool!

Notice anything Xtranormal?

Notice anything Xtranormal?
Outside the convention center were two of the characters from Xtranormal: the animated video service AdAge said would redefine web creativity and economics. I met members of their team and posed for a picture with them.

Goodbye Austin, Goodbye Southby

Goodbye Austin, Goodbye Southby
Downtown Austin as viewed from the taxi on the way to the airport.

Accelerated Sunset

Accelerated Sunset
Flying east, watching the sunset over the wing aboard a JetBlue A320. Sarah Wallace had the seat next to mine and made the 4.5 hour flight feel like 5 minutes.

SXSW Gotcha!

SXSW Gotcha!
As soon as I turn my phone on after landing I got this text message alerting me that I’d won a giftcard that I entered to win at the tradeshow earlier in the day. Doh!

SXSW MVP

SXSW MVP
By far the most valuable tech device at SXSW, aside from my iPhone, was the Splash Intense battery pack. Here I am, already missing Austin and SXSW, making good use of the battery pack while waiting for the C&J to take me back to New Hampshire.

I hope you enjoyed my photo blog of SXSW 2011. Did you take pictures or blog about the event too? I’d love to see what you shared, so please post a link in the comments!

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My Podcamp Session: Winning the Location-Based Services Game

by on Oct.23, 2010, under Location-Based Services

Slide from my Winning the Location-based Services Game presentationI’ll be writing about this in more depth over the coming weeks, but for the benefit of you and all the Podcamp NH attendees I’d like to share my slides and related links from my Winning the Location-Based Services Game session.

Here’s the session description for context:

Winning the Location-Based Services game – Much has been said, tweeted and blogged about foursquare and Location-Based Services. But what exactly are Location-Based Services and what can you do with them? Why does it matter and what does it mean to win at them? In this session we’ll explore and discuss the different ways we can make Location-Based Services like foursquare work for us, from both consumer and business/marketing perspectives, so we can all become winners of the game.

And here is a link to a PDF of the slides! And yes, that cool photoshop I did that you see here of Uncle Sam and an iPhone is one of my slides :)

Please feel free to re-use any imagery/slides/etc from this presentation (and please leave a comment and link back to me because I’d love to know!). If you check the attribution slides you’ll notice that most images are creative commons licensed by their original authors with the following exceptions: The “On a boat” pic, the check in on foursquare to donate $10 poster, the Jimmy Choo contest, the Radioshack checkin screenshot, A winner is you, and also the happy lolcat dog. So keep that in mind.

Here are related links from the presentation:

Tweet the revolution!

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Thanks for all the SXSW panel support!

by on Aug.27, 2010, under Location-Based Services

dens-powerOver two weeks ago Nate Bonilla-Warford (of Foursquare Day fame) and I started telling the world about our SXSW panel proposal (Today’s the last day to vote! Please vote if you haven’t and please tell a friend!).

Since then, we’ve had over 1,000 clicks on our bit.ly links and have received a ton of retweets, tweets, facebook posts, likes and comments posted from people wanting to share the news about the panel (including a tweet from a certain someone that uh, had a large effect on our stats as shown in the pic – thanks @dens and @foursquare!).

And that’s only the measurable stuff – we don’t even know how many votes we got. I am overwhelmed and super excited about the response for this and INCREDIBLY appreciative of all the support! So I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone, literally! (Or atleast, as best as I can from the logfiles I have available – and if I missed anyone please accept my apologies and thanks!) So I’m proud to say, and I’m sure I speak for Nate here as well, THANK YOU everyone for voting and spreading the word!

THANKS TO

A very special EXTRA thanks to Monica Wright for encouraging me to submit a panel idea, Nate Bonilla-Warford for joining me to make this panel legit and to Jessica Barnett and Margot Bloomstein for all the guidance, support and ideas.

The first round of selected panels will be formally announced September 20th, so we’ll keep you posted. But regardless of whether we’re selected let’s keep the Foursquare Day conversation going – and I hope to see YOU at SXSW! Thanks again!!!

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