I have to admit – Foursquare is one of best applications that I’m currently using on my iPhone 4. Now you might be wondering what Foursquare is. Here’s a simple explanation about Foursquare.
Foursquare is a location-based social networking website, software for mobile devices. Users “check-in” at venues using a mobile website, text messaging or a device-specific application. They are then awarded points and sometimes “badges.” The service was created in 2009 by Dennis Crowley and Naveen – Selvadurai. – Wikipedia
To put in plain english – Foursquare is a service where you can check in using an application on your mobile phone when you visit Restaurants, Hotels, Shopping malls, Airports, etc. The list is quite long. It uses LBS (Location Based Services) to track where you are using your mobile phone. If you have GPS on your mobile phone, the application can track you quite accurately. If you don’t have GPS on your mobile phone, it uses triangulation to pin point your location.
What is Triangulation?
Cell phone triangulation is simply cell phone tracking. You basically take two points (two cellular towers) and locate the distance to a third point (mobile phone). This is achieved by measuring the angles that are formed between the first two points and the third point. In short, it is simple trigonometry where you draw two lines at given angles until they intersect at a common point; hence forming the triangle. Since phone triangulation tracks the signal strength of cell phone towers, it may not be possible to triangulate a phone without paying a fee to the telephone company – Ehow
Mobile phones using Triangulation to check your location instead of GPS, can be miscalculated and so the results could be out with a couple of meters to a couple of kilometres (South Africa).
The story
Last night I went out with a couple of friends and I tried to “check in” with my iPhone to the venue we were at. To my surprise Foursquare had the venue location listed a few hundred meters away and so I couldn’t check in because according to Foursquare, I was not near the location we were at. Thinking about this while I was looking online for a solution why I couldn’t check in, it occurred to me that I know people who are using Foursquare without a GPS enabled mobile phone.
If you are at a venue not listed on Foursquare, you can create the venue by adding a name of the venue and a location (street address) of the venue. When you create a new venue, Foursquare automatically checks your position and assumes that is where the venue is located. You do have the option to pinpoint the exact location of the venue when creating a new one.
The plot thickens
Back to the story – Someone must have created the location we were at previously and they didn’t use the actual address of the location to pinpoint it on their map. They most likely used their location that it got from Triangulation. To give you an example, have a look at this venue – http://foursquare.com/venue/11485854
That location is way wrong. The BP is situated across the road from the pin on the map and about 100 to 200 meters away from the physical address. Now this is quite unpleasant as I now have to check on the map where the pinpoint is and move away from the location to check into that venue. Doesn’t make sense. Now you can Flag locations directly on the application if the address isn’t correct and you can edit the address of the location but, how long does it take Foursquare to apply the new settings?
Really, I’m not trying to flame Foursquare in any way. I think it’s a kick-ass application and I’m quite addicted to it. I just want people not using GPS to add the correct venue details so that we can have a trouble-free Foursquare experience.
I’ve begun playing around with Whrrl to check in as well, and I was at a location today that had correct store name and street address, but wrong city. What’s that all about? Clearly these applications (though fun) allow for some bugs.
I’m not familiar with Whrrl. I’ll check it out.
It’s really not bugs on the applications. It’s users not checking the data they input into these applications when creating new venues.