Foursquare adds merchant prizes
Popular social networking service Foursquare has added a new incentive to using its services: receiving a discount for becoming “Mayor.”
Geo-location has become a hot new trend in social media circles due to the ease with which they work on cell phones with GPS capabilities. Amongst the most popular of these services is one called Foursquare which allows you to “check in” at various locations around a city. Each time you check in at a location you earn points, become the person who checks in the most and you become the “Mayor” of that location.
Well, becoming “Mayor” just got a lot more interesting at Blynk Organic, a restaurant in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Blynk Organic is the first restaurant to announce that the “Mayor” eats for free! That’s right, all the lucky person has to do is show their iPhone or Android handset (BlackBerry phones are currently being beta tested) with the badge on it, and they’ll get to eat for free at the establishment. Getting coupons through Foursquare for participating businesses have been a part of the program since the beginning, but this is a new twist to the whole system.
There is no word on how long this privilege lasts, so it might be a one time thing, or it may be for as long as you remain the “Mayor”. We contacted Blynk Organic for clarification, but our call was not returned by publication time. As someone who is “Mayor” obviously goes to the business a lot, and would have even more incentive to go there due to free food, we have a hard time imagining it’s endless as it could end up being a mighty long time before they were unseated from their position.
With more and more geo-location applications coming out for various phones, a whole lot of people could end up eating for free as more promotions like this roll out.
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December 31st, 2009
hey hey! thanks for the post! we actually have had folks running promotions since August :)
Blynk’s is just the first of its kind tied to a badeg. Check out foursquare.com/businesses for all the other venues who have run promos with us