Today, location-based sharing service FourSquare just announced a new program called "FourSquare Universities," which offers – not surprisingly – a platform for major Universities and Colleges to create venues, promotions, specialized tips, and crafted landing pages.

What is FourSquare?

FourSquare – commonly abbreviated 4sq – is a social media service at its heart, a way to connect with friends you already know in new ways, discover new friends who share similar interests and hangouts, interact with brands/companies/institutions in new (mobile) ways, and more.

The platform revolves around a mobile-based smartphone application (now on all the major smartphone operating systems) which allows you to perform an electronic activity at your favorite places: the "Check-In".  The most common use case is probably the local bar; a regular customer could visit his favorite watering hole, whip out his iPhone, and "check in" to the bar, which allows numerous things to happen: nearby friends can be notified that you are also nearby; it maintains a database of all the places you've checked in at (so you can have a semi-permanent record of what you do, kind of an automatic diary of your evenings out); if you check in frequently enough, you can potentially become a temporary "mayor" of the bar (encouraging playful rivalries among friends); the bar can see that you've checked in, including the frequency and times of your visits, which allows them to tailor service for their clientele to match their behavior patterns; and (most commonly) brands will often offer certain rewards for performing specific actions or checkin-ins while there.  For example, many companies offer in-phone coupons to new customers; Starbucks offered it's "Mayors" coupons for $1 Frappucinos – and not just at a single store, but nationally. (More examples of first-off FourSquare promotions.)

Also, worth mentioning at this point is the underwhelming Facebook Places – and yes, we have a Place page set up as well, although Facebook is still taking its sweet time processing our request for ownership of the page.  However, Facebook offers no promotional tie-ins of any kind.  It's simply a bare-bones way to show your friends where you are, and at this time, isn't able to really give additional benefit to the user.

Now, FourSquare is bringing that same principle, of checking in (providing the institution with information about how and when our services are consumed) in exchange for some kind of benefit (whether the social benefit of seeing what your friends are doing, or some kind of tangible reward or coupon) – but the question for most Universities becomes, "What do we have to offer?"

A University is Not Any Other Brand
 An academic institution is very different than most of the business brands using 4sq.  Most consumer brands have something immediate to give to customers, be it a cup of coffee, a new article of clothing, or even an experience, as is the case with movie theaters or sports games.  In contrast, we have already secured our customers (unlike Starbucks, you pay us well before we give you anything of value), and are in the process of giving a service (education) – not a product.  (An admissions department would have different goals here than the school itself, as it's working mainly with prospective students which are still potential customers).  There's no way for us to offer a financial break to students ("Half off the cost of your first class!") or special access to most of our sought-after resources ("Mayors get their first pick of video cameras no matter who's already waiting in line!") because these aren't simply fiscal constraints to be re-worked on a spreadsheet; they are determined as necessary to a fair, quality education, something we obviously don't want to compromise for a service like FourSquare.

Many Universities using the system thus far have designated free school-branded paraphernalia to give away for meeting certain "Check-in" conditions, an idea which certainly makes sense, but isn't really taking advantage of the essential, social quality of the platform.

Two examples we've considered thus far: offering students who check in a set number of times (50? 100?) a free Vado cam (kind of like a Flip camera – a relatively cheap, high-definition, hand-held video camera); and offering guests who check into the Folino Theater a set number of times (5? 10?) times throughout the year a discount on their Cecils ticket (the end-of-year awards ceremony).  Both of these involve a nice exchange of time and services on behalf of the customer and institution.

I'm really interested to hear what you think we should offer students.  What could a first-time visitor to the school receive?  Or, what about the night-owl who checks in at 3AM every Friday?  The "Mayor"?  These are all opportunities to give something back to our prospective students, devoted academics, and visiting guests as well.  What would you like to receive from Dodge College as a minor incentive to share your check-ins with the school, and your peers?

For now…

… we have set up the FourSquare venue, which you can find on your mobile phone when close by, or directly on the web: <http://foursquare.com/venue/1081828>  Give it a try, play around for a while, and let us know what you think.  Is this service valuable to you?

(Thanks to Student & Campus Life for setting up the various Chapman 4sq accounts earlier this year.)