Four Square vs. foursquare

It was all the rage on the playground in 5th grade. Today it’s all the rage anywhere in the world as long as you have a Smartphone.  It’s foursquare. And in reality, that game you played back in grade school isn’t all that different from the game that you play on your phone today.

Four Square (Playground Version): Played with a rubber playground ball on a square court with four players. When the ball is bounced into your square you must then bounce it back out without hitting twice in your own square, otherwise you are out. The object is to eliminate players in higher squares so that you can make it to the 'four square' and score the most points.

vs.

foursquare (Online Version): A mobile device application in which users "checkin" to venues, businesses, and restaurants. Users can then see where their friends are as well as what locations are "trending" (heavily attended at the moment.)

Ball:

The one physical object that is required to play your favorite childhood game.

vs.

-Smartphone:

The one physical object required to play your favorite social media game.

Court:

In order to play your favorite childhood game, you need a designated area with 4 large squares drawn with chalk on the ground.

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Specific Location:

In order to play your favorite social media game, you have to be within a certain area that the GPS on your phone can pick up.

Serve:

When you play four square, you serve the ball in order to get other players “out” with the ultimate goal of getting to the 4 square.

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Checkin:

Whenever you go to a venue or location, you checkin in order to get points and earn different rewards (specials and badges). When you checkin, you have the ultimate goal of becoming the “Mayor” of that specific place.

You always want to be in the “4 Square:”

The person in the 4 square is the one who calls the shots and basically runs the game. You are the head honcho.

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You always want to be the “Mayor:”

When you have the most checkins at a specific place, you become the Mayor of that venue (which can potentially earn you a special if offered...one great example is Starbucks.)

“The Calls”

In four square, the 4 square could make different calls for how the game should be played…some of these universal calls include:
          -Popcorn: The 4 square would throw the ball up into the air, clap once, then pass it to the second person who would clap twice while the ball was in the air, and so on.
          -Around the World: Once this was called, the ball would either go clockwise or counterclockwise around the square until either the 4 square called “Peace”, a player broke the pattern, or a player got out.
          -Cherry Bomb: The 4 square would spike the ball hard into someone’s square making it difficult to pass the ball on.
          -War: Once declared, the 4 square and the chosen player would hit the ball back and forth between them only. If one of them messed up at anytime, that player would be out.

vs.

“Badges”

The one thing that makes foursquare so exciting, besides Mayorships, are of course the badges, which you earn by checking in at various places. Some of the more common and well-known ones include:

            -Newbie: You get this for checking into your first place!

            -Adventurer: This badge is gained when you check into 10 places.

            -Local: Checkin to one place 3 times in the same week and you’ll earn this.

            -I’m on a Boat: Checkin on a boat and you’ll get the “I’m on a Boat” badge.

“Calls” and “Badges” are very similar in the sense that you may never know when one is coming and it might seem like they are just being made up out of no where. I’m sure we all played a game of four square in our youth where the 4 square just randomly called a move (or called a known move by another name) and there’s badges out there that most foursquare users might not be able to attain or even know about.

You played with and against your friends when you were a kid, and today you’re doing the exact same thing. It was one of the coolest games then and the version in 2010 is just as cool and fun too. The only difference: when the sun goes down on the playground, you had to stop playing and with today’s foursquare, you can play all night long…you might even get the “School Night” badge.


socialmedia #FTW!


-M

Speaking of Social Media Changing the World...

Forget all of social media trying to make the world a better place...Twitter is tackling this on it's own today with TwitChange. Is it your dream for your favorite celebrity on Twitter to follow you or tweet you back? Well, starting today and for the next 9 days you can bid on eBay to make this dream come true. Celebrities such as @JustinBieber, @JoeJonas, @KimKardashian, @RyanSeacrest, and @TonyHawk (and the list goes on!) are all in on the using Twitter for charity action. @EvaLongoria seems to be the spokesperson for the whole auction which started this afternoon. All of the proceeds for this auction will be going to ahomeinHaiti.org which according to the website is a project to build a brand new orphanage and school for disabled children in Haiti. There are four ways to get in touch with your favorite celebrity through TwitChange: be followed by them, get re-tweeted by them, get mentioned by them, or get the ultimate package and have all three happen! 

Just after a few hours of bidding, the ultimate package for @alyssa_milano is up to $3,050. TwitChange truly exemplifies how powerful social media can be, as I spoke about in my previous post. People are willing to pay over $3,000 to just get recognized by a celebrity on Twitter. Who knows what the amounts will be like when the bidding ends on September 25th. This is a brilliant idea by all celebrities involved and a great use of a social media fad in order to do some good for humanity. The influence of social media, specifically Twitter in this instance, will never cease to amaze.

@SocialMedia #FTW!

-M

Have a Charitable Cause? Social Media Can Help.

Social media is a powerful thing. Using social media as a way to spread the word about a good cause can be the most powerful way for a charity (or even a small group or individual) to make an impact in the lives of almost anyone who is connected to the Internet. There are thousands of charities (big and small) that have created Facebook Pages and Twitter accounts in order to make a name for their good causes. It is a fact that when it comes to donating money in 2010, the average person will prefer to donate online. Social media can be the perfect solution to any fundraiser if the campaign is executed properly. The following are a few campaigns and charities that I think are doing the whole “using social media to promote a cause for the good of humanity” the right way…starting with the “big” and ending with the “small."

1. Social Good Summit 

I must start by promoting the Social Good Summit which will take place on Monday September 20, 2010 in NYC. The event is sponsored by Mashable and 92Y Street and will feature speakers such as Susan Smith Ellis (CEO (red)), Howard W. Buffet (advisor to the President), and Judy McGrath (CEO of MTV Networks). The goal of the Summit is: “to leverage social media for social good.” According to Mashable, “every speaker will explain how digital media and innovative ideas can combine to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the UN’s framework for creating a safer and healthier world for us all.” So there you have it. Some of the most important people in the world believe that digital and social media can be part of the fix to the world’s biggest problems. THAT’S how powerful social media is.

2. Stand Up to Cancer

Just this past Friday, the Stand Up to Cancer campaign aired an hour-long live telethon on all the major television networks in order to raise money for cancer research. But online, SU2C is a perfect example for how a charity should portray itself via social media. On the SU2C Facebook fan page (link) there is a tab to “Donate Now” where Facebook users can use their Facebook Credits to donate. SU2C has also teamed up with omg! from Yahoo on Facebook. omg! from Yahoo! has agreed to donate $1 to SU2C for every person who likes their Facebook Fan Page through Monday September 13, 2010. How easy is that? You don’t even have to spend a penny and you can support Stand Up 2 Cancer. DO IT!

3. Pepsi Refresh Project

Pepsi has dedicated millions of its earnings to fund ideas that will make America a better place with the Pepsi Refresh Project. ANYONE can submit an idea to the Pepsi Refresh website and ANYONE can vote for the ideas that Pepsi chooses to promote.  (They choose 1,000 ideas every month.) The ideas are separated by category and the amount of money that will be needed to make the idea come to life. This is an absolutely brilliant idea by Pepsi; letting anyone on the Internet vote for any of the ideas up to 10 times per day truly empowers the general population who just want to create something for a good cause. And the beauty of the Pepsi Refresh Project is that it is up to the idea creators to spread the word about being involved in the Project in order to get the most votes. With the power of social media promotion anything can be possible if carried out in an effective manner!

4. Sean's 2010 NYC Marathon Fundraising Quest

(Here comes perhaps a shameless plug…but an example of how social media can help a good cause nonetheless!)

My good friend Sean McGrath will be running in the NYC Marathon this November for a charity called Team for Kids. Sean’s goal is to raise $3,000 for TFK and one of the first places he started his fundraising efforts was on Facebook with a Page called Sean’s 2010 NYC Marathon Fundraising Quest. Sean has done an excellent job of keeping his fans updated on who is donating the most money, events going on in support of his fundraising, and how his overall marathon training is going in general.  On his page, there is a link to the Team for Kids website where anyone can donate any amount. Sean is just a grad student looking to do some good in the world and a perfect example of how anyone raising money for any good cause can go out and make a Facebook Page or a Twitter account and create some buzz for what they are trying to raise money for. It’s tough to get people to donate any amount of money in today’s world, but if you make a good connection with the help of social media, you just might be able to get something out of it. Please check out more about Sean’s 2010 NYC Marathon Fundraising Quest and Team For Kids here (http://www.runwithtfk.org/Member/PublicPage/104) and if you are the slightest bit inspired pretty please donate! Do it for the kids…and in honor of the power of social media!

@SocialMedia #FTW!

-M

7 Reasons to Embrace the Awesomeness of Social Media

1. You can connect with the entire world.
Just a few months ago, Facebook reached 500 million users. That means that there are 499,999,999 other people out there for you to meet via the Internet. Pretty incredible if you ask me. And the fact that you can interact with these people from the comfort of your own home is even more fascinating. You could be the laziest person on Earth, but social media makes you one of the most powerful purely because the world is at your fingertips with an Internet connection and a few logins & passwords. Social media is a revolution and more likely than not, you are part of it. Check out this video full of social media facts...some of which might scare you.


2. Consistency!
Social media will always be there for you. And most likely you will always be able to find some way to have social media make you happy as well. You could be angry at all of your friends but then you login to Twitter and you see a happy inspirational tweet from @RevRunWisdom and you feel instantaneously better (hopefully). Social media has taken over the world in full force and it's never going to go away, at least not anytime soon (see YouTube video from point #1).


3. Acts as a news source.
Don't have a TV nearby? No problem if you have Facebook or Twitter. On most days, I use Twitter as a source for what's going on in the world just by looking at the trending topics. Of course they're not always accurate...but at least I know what the big gossip topics of the day are. A lot of times, Twitter trends might not even make any sense to you. Use whatthetrend.com to figure out what all those confusing hashtags might mean. Even Facebook statuses are useful to get your news from. Most times, if a big event is going on in your area or in the world, your friends will update their Facebook statuses to reflect this.


4. Reach your consumers and give us free stuff.
"Like this status and be entered to get a free coffee." "RT this and get 10% off your next purchase of shoes." "Check-in here and get free chips!" From an advertising/PR and marketing point of view, it should be pretty clear for brands and companies that social media is where it's at for most of their consumers nowadays.  FourSquare is really revolutionizing this idea with its check-ins. (If you don't have FourSquare on your smartphone, get it. You will not be disappointed. Maybe this blog post on awesome check-in benefits will intrigue you.) Social media also provides a simple way to get a message out to not just pre-existing consumers, but the entire world. Brands are really catching on to the whole "give free things away and offer great deals" portion of social media and we, the consumers, are doing nothing but benefitting from it.




5. Celebrity stalking without even trying.
Hey. We didn't ask celebrities to share every little thing about their lives on Twitter, some of them just chose to. Are we complaining? Well, some of us are. But the majority of the population loves the fact that they can know what @LadyGaga ate for breakfast and what @OGochocinco is doing on the sidelines of a Bengals game. However, celebrities getting involved with social media (mainly Twitter) can be really toxic for their image...just ask @JohnCMayer. Nonetheless the celebrities will keep tweeting and you can find most of your favorites at celebritytweet.com (your #1 source to stalking celebrities via Twitter).


6. The ULTIMATE word of mouth.
With the simple update of a Facebook status or a tweet on Twitter, your friends and followers will know what's up with you. Need someone to go out with on a Friday night? Status update and tweet. Want people to read your new blog post? (What I'll be doing in a few minutes...) Status update and tweet. You can get any information out to your friends in just a matter of seconds. Fundraising for a charity? Running in a contest? Friends of mine have created Twitter pages just for specific fundraising or contest purposes and gained hundreds of followers to support them. If you have a cause or contest that you need supported, turn to social media, the best word of mouth around...it's the easiest way to get yourself recognized! Speaking of word of mouth, did you know that awards are given out for effective word of mouth marketing? Well, they're called the WOMMY Awards and this year a new category has been added for no other than...social media.


7. GET DISCOVERED through networking!
You never know where that dorky kid from middle school is now. He could be the connection to your next great job. Social media gives you the ability to find this kid on Facebook or LinkedIn just by entering what school you went to or what town you lived in. By creating a solid social media network, you can connect with people who can give you your next big break in the world. You could land a job with a tweet. The MTV TJ search is a perfect example. Contestants had to gain the most votes by promoting themselves through Twitter in order to become MTV's first ever Twitter-Jockey (TJ). With social media the possibilities and opportunities are endless. If you make a good name for yourself on the Internet, you never know where it might get you! 


@SocialMedia #FTW!


-M