April 16 – Foursquare Day

nPosted on April 16, 2019

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nThere are all these apps that can be handy. There are all these social media platforms that can be dandy. One of them is Foursquare.

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nFoursquare is a local search and recommender service. If you have Foursquare on your phone, it knows where you are, and you can use it to find restaurants or events or museums or stores nearby.

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nThe differences between this service and the “find restaurants (or whatever) nearby” service on our map apps include: 

n(1) Foursquare knows your taste because of your previous browsing history and check-ins, and because of choices you made when setting up the app. So the app personalizes nearby recommendations to you! 

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n(2) Foursquare offers short tips from users who have been to the local places it recommends.

There are tens of millions of people who routinely use Foursquare. About half of them live in the U.S., and the other half live in places scattered all over the world.

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nWhy is today Foursquare Day?

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nBecause April is the 4th month, and because 16 is 4 squared, April 16 has been declared Foursquare Day. 

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nI expected that the date had been chosen because it was the launch date of the app – but I like this mathematical explanation even better!

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nIs Foursquare a good idea?

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nAlmost a decade ago, a website called Please Rob Me was launched. The point of this website was that it might not be the smartest thing to tell the entire internet every time you are not home. 

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nEven though this particular website picked on the people who used Foursquare and Twitter to announce their locations, the concept of not announcing our location to the entire internet would be a concern for any social media platform and any app that allows check-ins and location sharing. 

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nWe should all use sensible privacy settings, and we should only use check-in and location sharing services with close friends or family. 

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nBy the way…

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nIf you’re like me, you might have hoped that Foursquare Day was a celebration of a playground game. And I say, it CAN be! Let’s play!

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nAnswer to the “how many squares?” challenge above:

nThere are 40 squares of varying sizes in the diagram.

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• nApril holidays

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• nApril birthdays

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• nHistorical anniversaries in April

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• nMay holidays

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• nMay birthdays

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• nHistorical anniversaries in May

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