With phones in hand, Foursquare users campaign to be ‘mayor’

PHILADELPHIA - The Honourable Michael Nutter is the mayor of Philadelphia. Not in the world of Foursquare, though.

In that social-media world, the mayor of Philadelphia is some guy named “Frank S.,” from New York.

In Foursquare, there’s a mayor of the Ben Franklin Bridge, too – EricaLynn Gruenberg of Oaklyn, N.J.

The mayor of the Philadelphia Museum of Art is John Ingram of Lansdale. And the mayor of the NJ Transit train between Atlantic City and Philadelphia is Trisha Winter of Vincentown.

In Foursquare, people with smartphones register their whereabouts and share them with friends. You “check in” wherever you are. Almost any place that’s a place, you can check in. And if you check in the most, you can become … the “mayor” of that place.

As in a video game, mayorship brings instant rewards. “Anyone else who checks in to that place,” explained Mitch Rozetar, 21, an Art Institute of Philadelphia student from Sinking Spring, Pa., “is told you’re the mayor.”

Like Facebook, Twitter, and other social media, Foursquare helps friends stay in touch and groups come together based on shared interests. But it’s also addictive, a mad game of points, badges, mayorships, and “specials” – discounts, free food and drink, free stuff – that encourage and reward the alert and curious. said Rozetar: “Foursquare rewards you for going out of your comfort zone and trying new things.”

“There’s a sense of fame to it,” said Rozetar, mayor of Reading Terminal Market.

Brandon Thomas, 28, a restaurant manager for Jose Garces and mayor of Philadelphia’s Piazza at Schmidts, said, “I’ll be walking through my restaurant, and a group will scream my name, ‘Hey, Brandon!’ … In shock, expecting the worst, I see Foursquare on their phones, and they say, ‘It’s great to meet the mayor.’ “

“I use it pretty much daily,” Ingram, 26, said. Besides the Art Museum, he has the mayor’s keys to 15 places, including a coffeehouse in Phoenixville, Pa., and a beach in Ocean City, N.J. “I got my first mayorship and just took off.”

Thomas’ job naturally led him to the Piazza. “It took me two months to become the mayor,” he said. “I’ve been living here for nine months, and it’s a constant struggle to keep my mayorship. If I forget one day, I lose it.”

“If you don’t check in, others can ‘oust’ you as mayor,” said Alia K. Dickerson, 24, a Temple University graduate student who was, last week, a mayor of Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park (some places can be listed more than once, with slight variations). “I ‘check in’ when I walk through the park, riding in the car with my mom, or on the 38 SEPTA bus.”

Andrew Miguelez, 24, of Richboro, Pa., became mayor of Philadelphia’s Penn’s Landing area by checking in when he parked there for his job as a front-end Web developer for WebLinc. (He’s mayor of 21 other places, including a Pep Boys.) “I was in a heated battle with another daily visitor. … The title of mayor bounded back and forth between us every couple of days as one of us would check in earlier than the other, or would check in on a weekend.”

Foursquare, around since 2009, has 10 million registered users, according to its website. It’s not making much money now, but in June it raised $50 million on a valuation of $600 million – so there are people who think it could. Advertisers might like it because people use it a lot: The 750 millionth check-in happened in June. It’s used by urbanites, by men and women about equally. According to IgniteSocialMedia.com, its most active users are between 24 and 44.

For these users, it’s more than just pointless competition. It’s a way to stay in touch as you and your circle move from desire to desire.

“I usually use Foursquare to let friends know where I am,” Rozetar said. Miguelez uses it to find nearby friends when he wants something to do: “I’ve found many more opportunities to meet up with friends than I would if I’d been unaware.”

Other users track friends abroad, as Dickerson did with a friend in China.

Ingram says that through Foursquare he has found places that are “off the beaten track, but well worth it.” Drew Chrisner, 22, of Hamilton, N.J., stumbled upon the Mutter Museum. “It was awesome,” he said. “I went a second time, to a masquerade ball there, and got the mayorship.”

When you check in somewhere, Foursquare offers “tips” about what’s available nearby. At the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, tips praise the Chinese Rotunda and the Sphinx, and announce: “They throw great parties here.” McFadden’s at Citizens Bank Park is commended for its “beer tub girls.” Webster uses Facebook for noshing tips, as does Gruenberg: “Foursquare has made quite a few dinner decisions for me.”

“A main motivation to become the mayor of a venue is the fact that you can gain special discounts,” Rozetar said. Check in at McCormick Schmick’s, and you could get a free bar-food menu item with any beverage purchased during happy hour. And if you’re the mayor, well, you get a free dinner entree with purchase of any entree of equal value or less.

Gruenberg, 33, said she has found Foursquare useful for business networking: “Businesses that have specials are usually more than happy to meet those of us who are using the app and cashing in on the specials.” Ingram said that while he was mayor of Independence Hall, “people who visited there added me as a friend and asked for places to go.”

One community squarely behind Foursquare is the fooderati. Food workers often collect mayorships of bars and food venues. “We’ll check in in the middle of rush hour,” Thomas said. “We’ll write something like, ‘We’re getting hammered tonight, 400 covers.’ That’s the craziness of the food world.”

Ingram, an avowed “history and culture buff,” celebrates his culture jones by checking in at Philly historic sites.

But maybe the best example is Gruenberg.

Gephyrophilia means “love of bridges,” and it’s safe to say Gruenberg is a gephyrophiliac. She is mayor of the Ben Franklin Bridge – but she has also checked in at 18 other bridges. She was hooked, she said, the day she became the mayor of the Longfellow Bridge in Boston.

“When I moved back to the Philadelphia area, it was a no-brainer for me that I would strive to become the mayor of the Ben Franklin Bridge,” she said. “I knew it would be a difficult task, but I was up for the challenge.” She checks in as she rides across into Philly on the PATCO High-Speed Line.

She admits the whole Foursquare thing can seem strange to neophytes. But Rozetar stressed his generation’s “sense of connectivity”: “We’re used to sharing all kinds of information through Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.” Miguelez called Foursquare simply “mandatory.”

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Police hope tips by text will be new tool to fight crime

SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Attorney General’s Office has a new weapon in the fight against crime — a cell phone.

Surrounded by chiefs and officers from police departments across the state, Attorney General Mark Shurtleff on Wednesday announced a new initiative that will allow residents statewide to anonymously give police tips via texts or their computer browser. The tips can be in text form or videos and pictures.

“This is a tool to help law enforcement better do their jobs,” Shurtleff said. “This is the technological weapon of choice for many law enforcement agencies.”

Shurtleff called it “digital crime fighting.” Because criminals are utilizing this technology, he said it’s up to law enforcers to use it also.

Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder said law enforcement agencies would “miss the boat” if they didn’t adapt to new technologies.

Using the company TipSoft, 51 law enforcement agencies throughout the state now have the ability to take tips using smart phones, computers or iPads. The system is set up in such a way that all tips are completely anonymous and cannot be traced.

“We cannot go back and figure out who submitted the tip. It is absolutely secure,” promised TipSoft founder and CEO Greg Whisenant.

Yet the software being used by police still allows them to contact the person who submitted the tip if they need to collect any follow-up information, Whisenant said.

People who have a tip about a crime can send a text message to “CRIMES” (274637) and add an agency-specific keyword. On a computer, residents can send a tip via www.tipsubmit.com or by downloading the TipSoft app on their iPhone or Android.

Shurtleff recommended residents have their local police agency saved in their “contacts” on their phone.

The Salt Lake City Police Department has already embraced social media, including having its own Facebook and Twitter pages. Chief Chris Burbank said there are multiple people in his department monitoring those sites daily for tips.

Having a tip line doesn’t mean much, Burbank said, if the tips just sit in a computer file and are rarely looked at.

“The quicker we respond to a crime, the better we’re able to prevent another crime from happening on top of it,” he said.

Burbank admitted, however, that filling a staff position to monitor the tips will be a problem. But he called the new online tip line one more avenue similar to the department’s traditional tip line on a traditional telephone.

Not everyone is comfortable using a telephone, Whisenant said. Some people prefer texting, he said.

One concern is whether the convenience of texting and the security of anonymity would prompt a rash of false police tips. Law enforcers Wednesday agreed it is a concern. But Whisenant said usually after an initial spike of false tips, the number of false reports generally dies off.

E-mail: preavy@desnews.com Twitter: DNewsCrimeTeam

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