I'm mayor of our local baby swimming pool on Foursquare and, given that I'm not very competitive when it comes to gaming, that may well remain my biggest LBS victory.
Founder Dennis Crowley told the Observer last week he wants Foursquare to be "about encouraging adventure". I'm not sure that's quite what he had in mind.
But the site has maintained its momentum in the tech press since its SXSW boost, and been the subject of some excited acquisition rumours of late.
Crowley told Bloomberg on Friday that the site now has one million users and will have to make a decision about whether to pursue more funding - or sell to the highest bidder within weeks. That userbase has grown from 170,000 in December and, if it continues at that rate, would reach 3m by the end of the summer.
He added that many of the rumours of acquisitions and VC deals had been inaccurate, but then he would say that. Particularly if a deal is imminent. There was the Yahoo to buy for $100m story earlier this month, plus discussion of acquisition by Facebook and Microsoft and reports that Foursquare had been talking to VCs in deals that would value the company of just 20 staff at up to $80m.
"We'll do whatever is best for the product," Crowley said. "We'll have it resolved in a couple of weeks. I want to end the distractions and get back to work.
"People are just making stuff up at this point," he said today. "We're just as surprised as anyone else."
Though Foursquare has barely begun to set up the small business deals in the UK - with the FT, for example, these are becoming commonplace in the US and the earning potential is massive. For marketers, location services can provide granular information on how often and when loyal users visit certain businesses. As I've said before, it's like a three-dimensional Nectar card.
Bloomberg cites Borrell researcher Kip Cassino, who has said that location-based services could account for $4.1bn in annual ad spend within five years.
Foursquare has started to introduce free ads to small shops and restaurants and sells ads to larger chain firms, but eventually the plan is to offer target local ads to relevant users and a self-service ad platform.
Foursquare vs Gowalla
Gowalla might arguably have the edge in terms of design and have benefited from the SXSW lift, but Foursquare was bigger before SXSW and has gained the most traction from the festival. New data from Viralheat has tracked the performance of both services and, in a suitably SXSW-style inforgraphic, illustrates the growth and the 'buzz' for each.
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