I have heard quite a bit about foursquare in recent weeks. Yesterday there was a piece in The Sunday Times about it. I read it. I didn’t understand it. This morning I signed up. Unfortunately, foursquare took this as a sign that I would like to be bullied. Bad move foursquare. You picked the wrong man on the wrong day. I was not in the mood.
1. foursquare Would Like To Connect To Your facebook Account. Yes, well Jonathan Lee wouldn’t. We’ve only just met and, quite frankly, I don’t trust you. You’re from New York. I’ve heard about what New Yorkers do with vital statistics and you’re certainly not doing the same to mine.
2. i) foursquare Would Like To Connect To Your twitter Account. Okay, you may do this on the basis that anything I put on twitter is public anyway. Now what? Oh, that’s nice, three of my twitter friends are already on foursquare. Or, as they are otherwise known, ‘three people I have never met’.
2. ii) foursquare Would Like To Add Your twitter Friends. Jonathan Lee wouldn’t. It’s one thing adding people you don’t know on twitter, quite another using an application that promotes stalking. If it’s all the same with you, I will remain foursquare friendless. You don’t recommend that? Yes, well I don’t recommend unicycling along a high-wire while kitted out in bondage gear, but we all have our differences don’t we?
3. foursquare Offers Rewards To Frequent ‘Checkers-in’. The rewards can range from ‘half-off’ drinks, to free admission to museums. Jonathan Lee is not impressed. If this relationship is going to work, you need to understand that I don’t consider having my drink halved as a ‘reward’. I consider it a mild-nuisance at best. And, at worst, tiresome.
4. foursquare iPhone App Would Like To Add Your Current Location. Jonathan Lee doesn’t. He is very happy doing some work at home without the whole of foursquare’s Jehovah Witness community knowing where he is.
5. foursquare Will Only Let You Become A Mayor If You Upload A Photo. Jonathan Lee tells you to shove your photo where the foursquare don’t shine. If Jonathan Lee wants to become a mayor without a photo, he bloody well will. And he doesn’t take kindly to some Yank telling him otherwise.
6. foursquare Recommends You Head Out And Earn Some Badges. Jonathan Lee likes collecting badges. Unfortunately, Jonathan Lee doesn’t like collecting badges if all he has to do is ‘check-in’ everytime he goes to Pizza Hut. Where is the challenge in that? At Cubs he had to jump over things and try not to burn things and look through a telescope at things and post melons through the old lady’s letterbox because she wouldn’t open the door. That was a challenge. Earning a badge for continuous checking-in at Pizza Hut is the kind of politically correct, everyone’s-a-winner, no-such-thing-as-losers, nanny-stated, liberalisation that Jonathan Lee deplores. And Pizza Hut is miles away.
7. foursquare Recommends The fiddme App. Jonathan Lee read the recommendation as the fiddle me app. He has now deleted it. Don’t waste my bloody time foursquare.