Recent developments with the mobile app Foursquare are making it look more and more like the next big thing experts predicted it might become.

Whereas the playing field for Facebook and Twitter is the Internet, Foursquare takes place online via the real world of brick-and-mortar businesses. For those unfamiliar, Foursquare is one of several location-based social networking apps including Gowalla and Loopt.

Foursquare allows users to set up a profile then, using geolocation technology, check in every time they visit a restaurant, bar, shop or just about any public destination that has been uploaded into the database. It provides incentive by awarding users badges for checking in, and it allows users to leave tips about places and communicate with each other through the interface.

It comes with Facebook and Twitter integration so that users can broadcast to their networks where they are, a development that has given rise to the joke site Please Rob Me.

Two developments this week have broken Foursquare out of its early adopter insularity and made it demanding of business owners’ attention.

1. Stats for Business Owners

In the coming weeks, Foursquare will roll out a huge gift to business owners: The ability to monitor things like who has checked in to their establishment, when they checked in, who the top customers are, where they are on other networks (Facebook, Twitter) the male-female ratio of customers and what times of day certain customers tend to arrive.

Before you start thinking that anytime you walk into a bar, the bartender’s going to know everything about you, remember that Foursquare only provides data that you provide it, so guard your privacy accordingly.

Foursquare’s goal is to enable business owners to better connect with their customer base, providing special offers to their top customers (”mayors” in 4sq parlance) and luring back customers who haven’t dropped by in a while.

Here’s what the business-owner interface will look like:

“We’re trying to give businesses more retention with current customers and the ability to add new customers with specials,” Foursquare business development director Tristan Walker told the New York Times Bits blog.

2. Fourwhere

Using Foursquare’s API, the techies at Sysomos bring us Fourwhere, essentially a mashup of Foursquare and Google Maps. Launched yesterday, the site searches around your location to show you what Foursquare users are saying about businesses in the area.

If you’re thinking Yelp, you’re thinking right. Soon customer comments on Foursquare will be just as important for business owners to monitor as customer reviews on Yelp, Insiderpages, Citysearch and all those other sites that pop up on Google Maps proper.

But take heart, business owners. Foursquare is more geared toward social networking and usage by real people and is not designed with anonymity in mind. And if someone does rip your joint on Foursquare, you can more easily reach out to them and address their concerns.

Or so it seems.

What do you think? Are these developments positive for business owners? What about users? Are you comfortable making your information known wherever you go? Let us know in the comments.

If you’d told me 15 years ago that come the turn of this decade, I’d be talking to Taco Bueno, I’d have gone straight into medical school.

But yesterday, I did have an exchange with the Texas-based fast Mexican food chain — or, at least, with the brand’s social media manager(s). Which is close enough.

First, I should point out I’m already a fan of Bueno on Facebook, as I am in real life. The first restaurant opened in my hometown of Abilene, Texas, in 1967, and I grew up frequenting the place. Whereas Taco Bell offered advertising even cheesier and sloppier than its food, Bueno was for those with more refined tastes. It was the first place I ever saw with a salsa bar, and the food was just, well, better.

So, yesterday, when Taco Bueno’s Facebook page posted a big picture of a Tostada with the caption, “Calling all Tostada eaters! Help us solve a debate – “Do you pick up a Tostada, or eat it with a fork and knife?”, I had to do my duty and chime in. (My answer, in short: You eat it with a combination of fork and fingers.)

I wasn’t alone, either. At last count, 224 people have posted comments, with 23 likes.

Amused more than anything, I tweeted about the Facebook post, including a link to the discussion and a nod to @taco_bueno.

Within minutes, Bueno had tweeted me back.

In the past, big companies such as fast-food chains specialized in herding people in and out of their restaurants, serving robotically consistent food with robotic, consistent service. You’d interact with the bored high-schooler behind the register and glance at the in-store ads, but that’s it.

The idea of a brand like Taco Bueno stirring up a fun public discussion about how to eat a tostada — there’s nowhere that could have taken place 15 years ago.

Sure, I and the couple hundred people that Bueno’s social media pros got chattering about tostadas know we’re not communicating with the company’s CEO. But we’re also not just sitting and receiving passive messages from a logo.

For all intents and purposes, a person at Taco Bueno thanked me yesterday for taking the time to talk about their tostadas. No strings attached, no marketing message. Just a normal, positive, human interaction.

Olé, Bueno.

How did you watch the Oscars last night? Did you turn on your TV and ignore everything else, or were you continually glancing at Twitter and Facebook to see how your friends were reacting to the awards?

Though traffic wasn’t quite up to the fail-whale-inducing levels of the Super Bowl, Twitter was afire last night with Oscar talk. Everyone was throwing in their two cents and slapping a “#oscars” hashtag on their thoughts.

I, for one, was intensely following Roger Ebert’s tweets. (The story of how Twitter has made a virtually voiceless man more heard than ever is its own story.)

When it comes to events like the Oscars, the Grammys, the Super Bowl and especially cult shows like Lost, people aren’t just consuming the medium of television and its attendant ads. They’re participating in the experience by using social media to chat with their friends, find out what the world is saying and broadcast their own opinions.

They do this especially during the commercial breaks, turning their eyes away from traditional advertising and toward the conversation online. (I even saw one local Oscar watcher complain about a business’ saturation of TV ads.)

So, how would you react if, in the midst of that Twitter feed you were watching last night, you saw a tweet from a local bar and grill you’re following that said, “Reply to us with your Best Picture prediction. First tweep to respond with winning answer wins free happy hour for 10 friends”?

All the people who would respond to a tweet like that would spread that bar’s brand organically to their friends.

A quick tour of the Twitter accounts some of my favorite local brands and places (names withheld) paints a picture of Sunday-night silence. And to think, it wouldn’t have cost a thing for these companies to join the Oscar conversation, apart from a little creativity and typing.

In a similar vein, I knew of several local Oscar-watching parties going on around town that barely registered on social media.

Case in point: A local concert hall that brings in bigger shows, 1,000-plus ticketed events, was holding an “Oscar Prom Night” in a newly christened bar adjacent to the theater. There was a costume contest and free food. And though the theater’s marketing people announced it with a tweet or two, they missed a huge opportunity to use social media to broadcast live from the event.

A live blog or series of tweets with Yfrog photos or even live-streaming video from the event would’ve spread the word about the party in real-time, not to mention producing some entertaining content for people at home. Furthermore, it would’ve helped the theater’s overall goal of promoting the venue as a place that’s good for smaller parties as well as concerts. I would’ve tuned in.

Of course, any business tying marketing messages to a national event must tread lightly and provide good incentive. They can’t just blurt out valueless commands and sales information, such as “OSCAR AFTERPARTY AT JOE’S — DRINK SPECIALS!!!”

The cardinal rule of social media marketing: Add value, not noise.

Now let’s discuss: How do you feel about receiving timely marketing messages from brands you follow on Twitter? Did you see any last night?

Like skydiving or heroin, the webcam phenom Chatroulette is something I’d rather listen to folks talk about than actually try myself. That’s my attitude now, anyways. And it’s still the same even after watching this smart, funny and profound video by the very talented Casey Neistat. But what a great piece of piece of storytelling: it blends the personal, the analytical and the universal. And it does such a brilliant job of pinning what’s both silly and significant about the Chatroulette craze, that now I’m sure I don’t ever have to try it.

chat roulette from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.

Have you tried Chatroulette? How did that go for you?

Update: Jon Stewart lampooned the media hype over Chatroulette last night. Whatever. Neistat’s is better.

About the filmmaker(s)
Casey Neistat and his brother, Van, are supposed to be launching their own HBO show sometime soon. They’re basically a couple of wayward youths cum homemade auteurs. (Ready Casey’s bio if you got a minute.) You can watch more of their compelling videos at their website. Just don’t expect to get anything else done today.

Topeka made a media splash earlier this week when it officially changed its name to “Google, Kansas” in a bid to become a test city for Google’s experimental fiber-optic broadband network.

Other small, broadband-hungry cities around the country have answered the call, too, including Greensboro, North Carolina, and Fort Smith, Arkansas, and Ann Arbor, Michigan, to name a few. And whether Google intended it to or not, this has definitely become a competition.

Piggybacking off of all the publicity Topeka earned, Duluth, Minnesota, has just released a would-be viral video that pokes fun at the Kansas capital for changing its name to court Google.

In the video, after the real Duluth mayor explains that this is just a friendly joke, a fake mayor decrees that all firstborn males must change their name to “Google Fiber” and all firstborn females to “Googlette Fiber.” Then the mayor comes back on and explains again that it was a joke — as well he should, for Kansans are not to be trifled with.

What do you think? Funny or lame? Are you surprised by the nationwide movement on behalf of smaller communities to get Google fiber?

“Desperate” and “suck up” are words some national bloggers have used to describe a recent proclamation by the mayor of Topeka, Kansas, to change the town’s name to Google, Kansas, for the month of March. The screenshot below is taken directly from the state capital’s website.

The reason for this civic stunt: Topeka, er “Google,” hopes to be chosen as a test market for the search giant’s new fiber optic broadband service, which promises speeds of 1Gb per second.

As this blog post explains, Google wants to make super-fast broadband Internet connectivity a public utility, and it has sounded the call for communities to tell why they should be chosen.

Judging by the low-key delivery of the employee in this explanatory video, Google probably wasn’t expecting any municipalities to go changing their names.

Some locals are calling the move cheesy but are ultimately showing support.

KCBizBeat, for one, gives props to mayor Bill Bunten and the Think Big Topeka campaign for creativity — and for having over 11,000 Facebook group members.

Bizbeat also points out, tongue-in-cheekly, that this isn’t the first time Topeka has changed its name to attract a trendy suitor. In 1998, the state capital redubbed itself “ToPikachu” in honor of Pokemon.

Now that was desperate.

The Star hammers Topeka for being boring but also says the idea deserves credit.

What do you think about Topeka’s “Google” play? Dorky? Noble?

Our take: We love the community action on display here. Folks in Topeka clearly realize that Google’s Utopian-sounding fiber network could do their depressed town a world of good — to say nothing of the bragging rights they’d get — and by golly, they’re gonna do what they can. Sunflowers over silicon!

However, the cheese factor is a bit overwhelming. It would’ve been nice if they’d focused more on rallying citizens online than on resorting to kitschy stunts. Only one tweet about this, Topeka?

There’s still time, though. And if they pull it off, we’ll gladly make the hourlong drive to show support by downloading all previous Lost seasons in Top City. (Kidding, of course…)

A report by the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland shows that American small businesses’ use of social media has doubled in the past year, from 12% to 24%.

According to the report, titled the Small Business Success Index, one in five small businesses are adopting social media into their business plans. The most popular tools are Facebook and LinkedIn profiles and blogs.

Download the full SBSI as a PDF at Network Solutions.

The report also includes a testimonial from an eye doctor who sees the benefits of social media more clearly than most (wa-waaa), and who we kind of want to hug.

“In order to meet the growing challenges of a tough market last year, I was forced to consider alternative options to keep my business visible,” says small business owner Dr. Alan Glazier, CEO and Founder, Shady Grove Eye and Vision Care. “With a very small investment in social media marketing, I was able to generate new business opportunities. Our Google ranking is consistently number one for many of the phrases people use to search for eye doctors in and around my city and we have received a “bump” in terms of new visitors to the site. My blog has been picked up by different news sources and led to media interviews. I am now recognized as a thought leader in social networking within my profession and lastly but most importantly, my marketing budget has been reduced by more than 80%.”

According to the index, 61% of businesses actively use social networking sites tools like Facebook and LinkedIn as a means of attracting new customers. 39% have created blogs about their areas of expertise, like the good doctor above. Only 16% use Twitter.

It’s interesting to note that 50% of the small businesses surveyed said that adopting social media took more time than expected. Hey — I sympathize. Generating content takes work! (And if you need help …)

In light of the economic downturn, many businesses praised social media as a cheaper means of marketing than traditional advertising. And while 17% found that engagement in social networking with customers created a forum for criticism, only 6% felt that it had hurt them.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the overall number — 24% — is kind of low low. Though it seems like many mom-n-pops have taken the time to set up at least a Facebook fan page, there are still tons of small businesses that have yet to begin beefing up their profiles and cranking out content.

And though 45% said that social media engagement would become profitable “in the next 12 months,” many small businesses are still pouring cash down the drain of print advertising. Sigh. They can’t all be like Dr. Alan.

Were you surprised by the report’s findings?

Further Reading: John Jantsch’s small-business-focused Duct Tape Marketing blog.

(Via Mashable)

Billing itself as “A Compendium of the World’s Wonders, Curiosities and Esoterica,” the Atlas Obscura is an online travel guide to the globe’s most unusual, out-of-the-way places.

You’ll find out about crazy places like the Pyramid of North Dakota and the Blood Falls of Antarctica.

And if you know of a weird attraction that’s missing, there’s an upload form.

In fact, thanks to its community-building features, the Atlas is a social network as much as it is a reference site.

People who upload their own curiosities can create profiles that appear whenever you’re looking at an Atlas location. Facebook Connect allows visitors to tell their network about places like the Newnes Glow Worm Tunnel.

The Atlas has Facebook and Twitter accounts, too.

All this social networking will no doubt come in handy this March 20, when Atlas fans take to local bizzarro attractions for Obscura Day.

If we weren’t leaving our Kansas City environs for SXSW this year, we’d totally rock the Kansas Underground Salt Museum in Hutchinson, KS, or the Garden of Eden in Lucas. Maybe we’ll have to swing by the Museum of the Weird and the Bat Bridge in Austin.

Note the heroic levels of organization on the part of the Obscura Day organizers: Each destination has its own Facebook invite and Eventbrite page endowed with Google Maps and an Attendee List. Be sure to RSVP! The widget at the top of this page? Kindly provided by organizers.

These people are serious about their weirdness.

Where will you venture on Obscura Day?

The social web is always changing. Platforms such as Friendster and MySpace rise and fall, and others like Facebook, Twitter and now Buzz take their places. As social networking sites become more and more intrinsic to the way we consume media and interact with our peers and customers, it can be tempting to just pick one platform and stick with it. That’s fine for personal use. If you use social sites only for talking and sharing with your friends, it’s your prerogative to choose the one that works best for you.

Businesses don’t have this option. Any brand that wants to engage customers on social media must meet them where they are. There’s not a business in the world whose customer base uses, say, Twitter exclusively. You’ve gotta fire up that Facebook fan page as well. YouTube, Flickr, LinkedIn, Buzz — each has its own community and set of laws.

As companies navigate these tricky social waters, many are daunted by the task of managing their profiles across all networks. This is especially challenging for creators of content, such as news outlets and blogs — sites that are posting fresh items multiple times a day.

The solution many content producers have chosen is to connect the RSS feeds of their blogs to Twitter through a service like TwitterFeed, which grabs the headline of your blog entry, creates a bit.ly link and pushes it on through. Major social media blogs Mashable and TechCrunch do this. Some big traditional publications, including Vanity Fair and Esquire, are doing a combination of seeding out headlines and also creating Twitter-tailored messages, complete with hashtags and @replies.

Presumably, these bigger pubs have the budget to hire full-time social media managers. And for the smaller guys, most of their readers and followers understand that it’s just not possible to hand-deliver everything. They’ll consume the content, regardless of the method of conveyance.

But there’s a debate right now over whether companies big or small, publications and even individuals should link their blogs to automatic feeds and their social accounts to each other.

No doubt many CMOs at content-creating companies would love nothing more than a magic button that would update all their company’s social networks at once. And with the ability to link Facebook to Twitter and vice versa through API devices, plus the aforementioned RSS linkups, that’s a possibility.

And guess what? It’s lame.

I learned this myself the hard way. I stand before you guilty of having experimented with linking various social networks together. Like a business and its customers, not all of my friends are on the same network. And I use to feel that I didn’t have time to cater to both. Most recently, I had my Twitter feeding to my Buzz for a couple of weeks. Guess what it got me.

Unfollowed.

Yes, it is important to get your message out through as many channels as possible. And cutting through the noise is a challenge. But whether you’re a corporation or just a dude or chick who likes to tweet, linking your channels together dilutes the message and annoys people.

Tim Maly knows this. The blogger behind the future-thinking Quiet Babylon has created a manifesto to fight the problem. (Via FastCompany.)

His Tumblr blog Unlink Your Feeds offers multiple arguments for hand-delivering messages tailored for your followers on different networks. Start with this post, which explains why automatic feeds are hurting you, your friends and the Internet.

It sounds a bit dramatic, but it’s actually pretty serious stuff. Given how much time we spend on social networks, consuming messages, it’s important to practice some stewardship when it comes to message creation. Don’t fill the world or your followers’ heads with noise.

Plus, it’s just good business.

What do you think? Have you experimented with linking together feeds? How’d that work out for you?

The New York Times this morning features an interesting case study about a small company faced with the choice between a traditional advertising strategy and a social-media/web-based plan for marketing its new line of products.

Those products: hand-rolled cigars from the Dominican Republic.

Pretty tradicional, no? Turns out, that’s not where the company’s mindset is.

Though the EPC Cigar Company was established last year, the family that runs it has roots in the cigar trade that go back to 1968. So when faced with the need to market their new label of cigar, E.P. Carillo, the Perez-Carillo needed a strategy that was cost-effective, efficient and that built upon the family legacy.

The family hired the agency Devito/Verdi to put its $300,000 marketing budget to good use.

The agency came up with a traditional advertising strategy that involved the usual stuff: taking out ads on major TV networks like Spike and VH1, taxi-cab toppers in New York, radio ads in major cities, print ads in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Wine Spectator, Cigar Aficionado, and so on.

The social strategy, on the other hand, had three website concepts that would be cheap to implement and reach cigar lovers everywhere. The article says: “one involved a collage on the company Web site of live, online mentions [via Twitter] of the company and Ernesto Perez-Carrillo Jr.; a second featured a world map (from Google Maps) on the Web site that showed the origin of real-time Twitter messages about cigars; and a third would use a Facebook page as the company’s main online presence. In any case, the digital strategy would involve the use of Twitter, Facebook and Flickr.”

Which strategy do you think EPC marketing director Ernesto Perez-Carillo III went with?

If you picked the second one, you win the stogie.

Perez-Carillo III decided the traditional media approach wasn’t worth the money. He chose to spend $40,000 on the digital initiatives and save the rest of his $260,000 for “trade shows, cigar-enthusiast events, point-of-sale material and some traditional media.”

Check out the company’s website, EPCarillo.com, and you’ll see a live, Google-based Twitter map showing tweets about cigars from all over the world. That’s just tweets about cigars, period. Not the company’s brand, necessarily. The site’s design is not great, but the idea is definitely powerful.

As the NYT article says: “Social media allow the company to communicate directly with cigar buyers, retailers, tobacco growers and others with whom it does business, according to both EPC Cigar and its agency. This is particularly important as the popularity of once-fashionable cigar bars wanes and public smoking bans proliferate.”

The site — which again, is kind of janky in places (on you, Devito) — features YouTube videos, Flickr photos and maps. Stare at that Twitter map for a minute, and you’ll see that the world does love a good smoke. And they love talking about it. (As I looked at it, I saw several tweets about this story.)

What a great illustration of how a small, family-run company can generate conversation about its brand organically — that is, by showing how real people are talking about the brand and the larger market in a meaningful way.

Kinda makes us wanna fire up a nice Dominican.

Image courtesy epcarillo