After 550 check-ins to date, primarily via SMS, I have a wish list of enhancements that would make Foursquare via SMS so much easier to use.

First a little background.  I’m a huge fan of the service and want it to succeed, but the SMS experience is frustrating at best.  The biggest problem is getting the SMS check-in to link up with the corresponding Foursquare venue.  I know I’m not alone as I see similar problems reported on the Get Satisfaction support site and a Twitter search turned up some frustrated comments as well.

I realize SMS users probably make up a tiny percentage of the overall Foursquare user base.  I know the apps for the iPhone and Android devices provide a much better experience.  But at its core, Foursquare is about sharing your location with friends and I think this functionality is achievable with any mobile device.

SMS is like the mobile equivalent of the command line on the PC.  Ultimately a simple yet extremely powerful way of interacting with computer systems.  Fred Wilson wrote about the importance of SMS last summer, calling it the least common denominator for mobile apps.

I think it is critical, particularly early on in the commercialization of a mobile web service, for there to be an easy and quick SMS interface.

For your consideration, here is my wish list:

• Allow user to change location via SMS.  If you are traveling to different cities (even suburbs) and the venue you want to check-in to doesn’t match your current city, the check-in fails.
  • Could be as simple as texting your city or zip:  “in Minneapolis, MN” or “in 55415″
• If a check-in isn’t recognized, send back a list of close venue matches.  If I see the right venue, let me text back the number from the list and check me in there instead.
• If I don’t see the venue I want in the results, post my raw check-in anyway (it does this today), but then on the history page let me go back later and link my raw check-in to the correct venue.
• Better SMS documentation would help tremendously.  SMS users have pieced a lot together through trial and error, but it would be great to know how some things are working in the background.
  • For example, I’ve heard there are aliases for venues and I have seen old venue names work from time to time, but it would be helpful to know exactly how this works.

I know there are higher priorities for a fast growing startup with limited resources, but I think a great SMS experience is an important component of the product and it can help grow and maintain the Foursquare user base.  If there is any way I can help improve the SMS experience let me know.

If you are a Foursquare user that shares these frustrations leave a comment here or on the corresponding post on Get Satisfaction.

The last few weeks the account posted teaser pictures of gear and rehearsals.  This week they cleverly used Twitter to provide clues to a somewhat secret warm-up show in London ahead of their first shows back this weekend at Isle of Wight and RockNess.  They first announced they were in London and then posted a play on their logo with the name Venison.  A photo of Camden Lock came next and fans put the pieces together and found a band called “Venison” on the schedule at Dingwalls located in Camden.

It didn’t take long for numerous music websites like NME and Brooklyn Vegan to spread the word.  This is a great example of using Twitter to generate instant buzz.  It’s an interactive and fun way to engage with fans everywhere and all it took was a couple pictures.  I hope they do a show or two like this in the U.S. this year.

Events like this are a great way for restaurants and bars to generate business and connect with customers.  Pazzaluna, also in St. Paul, did a similar event a few months ago and AJ Bombers of Milwaukee is one of the best success examples I have seen so far.  If you know of other events like this in the Twin Cities let me know.

I found a few good gadget tutorials to get started:

• Introduction to the Gadget Platform
• Developing a Gadget for Windows Sidebar
• Build Your Own Windows Vista Sidebar Gadget

Here is a quick tutorial for building a gadget.  I’m doing this in Windows 7, but I think it will work on Vista too.

• Navigate to C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Sidebar\Gadgets
• Create a folder called HelloWorld.gadget
• In the folder create a file called gadget.xml and helloworld.html

Add the following code to gadget.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<gadget>
  <name>Hello World</name>
  <version>1.0.0.0</version>
  <author name="Your name">
    <info url="http://www.mysite.com/my-gadget" text="mysite.com"/>
  </author>
  <copyright>&#169; 2010</copyright>
  <description>This gadget says hello!</description>
  <hosts>
    <host name="sidebar">
      <base type="HTML" apiVersion="1.0.0" src="helloworld.html"/>
      <permissions>Full</permissions>
      <platform minPlatformVersion="1.0"/>
    </host>
  </hosts>
</gadget>

Add the following code to helloworld.html:

<html>
<script type="text/javascript">
function DoInit() {
    document.body.style.width = 90;
    document.body.style.height= 55;
    document.body.style.margin=0;
}
</script>
<body onload="DoInit();">
<br>
<center>Hello World!</center>
</body>
</html>

After code is added to those files you can try the gadget out.  Go to Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Desktop Gadgets and you should see your newly created gadget.  Give it a click and it will pop up on the side of your screen.  That’s all there is to creating a simple gadget.  Obviously this gadget isn’t incredibly useful, but it gives you the basic idea to build on.

• Foursquare API documentation
• Foursquare OAuth authentication

Setup your environment

Here is what you’ll need to complete this tutorial:

• Your favorite text editor and web browser
• A web server with PHP (if you need to set one up quick, see my XAMPP tutorial)
• The foursquare-asyc library
• My two example files (you can either download these or create them as we go)
• If you don’t have one already, create a Foursquare account
• A bunch of patience. This stuff can be frustrating.

To begin, setup a project folder on your web server with the necessary files for this example.

Create a folder called “test” and create files inside that folder called index.php and callback.php. Then download the foursquare-async library (click “Download Source” in the upper right corner). Extract the files EpiCurl.php, EpiFoursquare.php and EpiOAuth.php to the test folder.

You now should have a folder called test that is accessible via a browser that contains these files:

• index.php
• callback.php
• EpiCurl.php
• EpiFoursquare.php
• EpiOAuth.php

Note: Depending on your server configuration you may need to manually enable cURL support. I did this example using XAMPP and needed to turn it on. In the php.ini file (C:\xampp\php\php.ini) uncomment the line “extension=php_curl.dll” and then restart Apache. If you get an error like this later in the tutorial it might indicate you need to enable cURL.

Possible cURL error:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function curl_multi_init() in C:\xampp\htdocs\test\EpiCurl.php on line 24

OAuth overview

You can authenticate with Foursquare’s API in one of two ways. The simpler, but less secure way is through basic access authentication. This method requires the user to provide their credentials (username/password) to your application and those credentials get passed right in the web request to the API. It gets the job done, but makes the user’s data more vulnerable. The user is also trusting that the application is storing their credentials securely.

The more secure option we will use in this example is OAuth authentication. OAuth does a better job of protecting the user’s credentials and also gives the user greater control over what applications have access to their account. For example, instead of giving a random application your Foursquare credentials, you instead click on a link within the application that sends you to Foursquare to provide your credentials. Then Foursquare sends you back to the application with appropriate access keys for the application to use. Authenticating this way means that your credentials stay between you and Foursquare. The application you are giving access to only gets the OAuth access keys and doesn’t see or store your actual Foursquare credentials. It sounds complicated, but hopefully this tutorial will clear it up a little. OAuth is becoming more of a standard and as an end user you are probably already authenticating with different applications and web services this way.

Here are the steps for the OAuth workflow that this example will accomplish:

1. Get request key and secret
2. Provide a link to the Foursquare authorization page
3. The user will approve or deny access and be redirected back to your application
4. Get access key and secret (and store in your application database, but we don’t need to for this example)
5. Use access key and secret to make API calls

Register with Foursquare to get your key and secret

The first thing we need to do is register our application with Foursquare to get a request key and secret for our application.  Go to http://foursquare.com/oauth/register, login and fill in the required information.

• Application Name:  OAuth Test
  • Give your application a name (My Foursquare App)
• Application Web Site:  http://localhost/
  • Provide the site where you will host your application (www.mysite.com/my-foursquare-app)
• Callback URL:  http://localhost/test/callback.php
  • This is the URL that Foursquare will send the user to after authenticating (www.mysite.com/my-foursquare-app/callback.php)

Click “Register” and Foursquare should generate a new key and secret for your application.  Your key and secret will be different than mine.

You can always return to http://foursquare.com/oauth/ to change these details or reset your key and secret.  At this point your application is registered and you have a key and secret to use.

Add code to the index.php file

The second task is filling in the index.php file with some code.  Open up index.php and add the following code.  Also if you are curious I am using the SyntaxHighlighter Evolved plug-in for displaying code.

<?php

//Put in the key and secret for your Foursquare app
//Your values will be different than mine
$consumer_key = "XB1NE31CJ4U22EF2GA53C4ULR3SL2BG21G1M5VTRCZ3K1XW5";
$consumer_secret = "3RHRD1KJLGFFHKDMD4SCE11NHNDCFUPOIPOQW4VGKLADFKC1";
$loginurl = "";

//Includes the foursquare-asyc library files
require_once('EpiCurl.php');
require_once('EpiOAuth.php');
require_once('EpiFoursquare.php');

session_start();
try{
  $foursquareObj = new EpiFoursquare($consumer_key, $consumer_secret);
  $results = $foursquareObj->getAuthorizeUrl();
  $loginurl = $results['url'] . "?oauth_token=" . $results['oauth_token'];
  $_SESSION['secret'] = $results['oauth_token_secret'];
} catch (Execption $e) {
  //If there is a problem throw an exception
}

echo "<a href='" . $loginurl . "'>Login Via Foursquare</a>";  //Display the Foursquare login link
echo "<br>";
//This is your OAuth token and secret generated above
//The OAuth token is part of the Foursquare link above
//They are dynamic and will change each time you refresh the page
//If everything is working correctly both of these will show up when you open index.php
var_dump($results['oauth_token']);
echo "<br>";
var_dump($_SESSION['secret']);

?>

Now open index.php in your browser and you should see the following, only your two values will be different.

Add code to the callback.php file

Before you go to the login link you created, we need to add code to the callback.php file.  Now open that one and add this code.

<?php

//Put in the key and secret for your Foursquare app
//Your values will be different than mine
$consumer_key = "XB1NE31CJ4U22EF2GA53C4ULR3SL2BG21G1M5VTRCZ3K1XW5";
$consumer_secret = "3RHRD1KJLGFFHKDMD4SCE11NHNDCFUPOIPOQW4VGKLADFKC1";

//Includes the foursquare-asyc library files
require_once('EpiCurl.php');
require_once('EpiOAuth.php');
require_once('EpiFoursquare.php');

session_start();
$foursquareObj = new EpiFoursquare($consumer_key, $consumer_secret);
$foursquareObj->setToken($_REQUEST['oauth_token'],$_SESSION['secret']);
$token = $foursquareObj->getAccessToken();
$foursquareObj->setToken($token->oauth_token, $token->oauth_token_secret);

try {
   //Making a call to the API
   $foursquareTest = $foursquareObj->get_user();
   print_r($foursquareTest->response);
 } catch (Exception $e) {
   echo "Error: " . $e;
 }

?>

Test it out

Now we are ready to try it all out and make a call to the Foursquare API.  This first call is going to bring back your user information.

Open up index.php in your browser again and click the login link.  This is the part where the user leaves your application and goes to authenticate with Foursquare directly.

Notice that your OAuth token is along for the ride in the URL:

Click on “Allow” and Foursquare will send the user to the callback page you created.

If everything worked correctly you will see your user information in the browser.

Try a few more API calls.  This will call back your check-in history:

//Making a call to the API
$foursquareTest = $foursquareObj->get_history();
print_r($foursquareTest->response);

If you want to make a call with parameters it looks like this.  This will get your user information along with your badges and mayorships:

//Making a call to the API
$params = array("badges"=>1, "mayor"=>1);
$foursquareTest = $foursquareObj->get_user($params);
print_r($foursquareTest->response);

As you look through the API documentation you will notice the different methods described like this:

URL: http://api.foursquare.com/v1/venue
Formats: XML, JSON
HTTP Method(s): GET
Requires Authentication: No, but recommended
Parameters:

• vid – the ID for the venue for which you want information

To call the venue details method above in our example we just need to change a couple things.  We know this method takes in the single parameter vid and we can grab a venue’s ID from its Foursquare URL.  22242 in my example corresponds to the venue Town Talk Diner.  On the next line, combine the HTTP method (GET) with the method name from the URL (venue) to form get_venue.

//Making a call to the API
$params = array("vid"=>22242);
$foursquareTest = $foursquareObj->get_venue($params);
print_r($foursquareTest->response);

Note that every time you go through this process and click “Allow” Foursquare adds another entry for your application.  You can go to your Foursquare settings page to clean these up.  If you were building out an application you would want to save the user’s OAuth information in a database so they don’t have to re-authenticate each time.  For this example the OAuth information is just getting placed in a temporary browser session and thus we have to re-authenticate each time.

Hopefully at this point you are making calls to the API and getting data back.  To go beyond these basic calls refer to the Foursquare API documentation to see everything that is available.  Also refer to the wiki page for the foursquare-asyc library to learn more about how it works.

I’m intrigued by it because it’s simple, visual, social and nicely complements other location/real-time services like Foursquare and Twitter.  Since many locations on Foursquare revolve around food and drink, Eat.ly adds a nice visual context to the great food you find.  Eat.ly nicely integrates with Foursquare and Twitter, so you can update your Eat.ly stream and check-in/tweet at the same time.

There is also a health component to Eat.ly where users can rank how healthy a meal looks.  I’m curious to see where they take this idea.  I think there is an opportunity to provide additional functionality around logging calories, daily food group servings and maybe other metrics from various dieting programs.  It could be a very helpful tool for people who closely track what they eat.

Eat.ly is well positioned to take advantage of a growing trend as well.  The New York Times just ran a piece about a growing number of people who keep photo food diaries.  Unfortunately I didn’t see Eat.ly mentioned in the article.

Eric Friedman, one of the people behind Eat.ly, posted about the project recently and discusses how it’s easier than ever to start a small web project.  He blogs regularly at Marketing.FM.

Remember these?

Despite great progress in the broadband area, there are many opportunities for improvement in areas like speed, coverage and affordability.  The National Broadband Plan is an internet roadmap that will try to address the following six goals (quoted from the site).

1. At least 100 million U.S. homes should have affordable access to actual download speeds of at least 100 megabits per second and actual upload speeds of at least 50 megabits per second.
2. The United States should lead the world in mobile innovation, with the fastest and most extensive wireless networks of any nation.
3. Every American should have affordable access to robust broadband service, and the means and skills to subscribe if they so choose.
4. Every community should have affordable access to at least 1 Gbps broadband service to anchor institutions such as schools, hospitals and government buildings.
5. To ensure the safety of Americans, every first responder should have access to a nationwide public safety wireless network.
6. To ensure that America leads in the clean energy economy, every American should be able to use broadband to track and manage their real-time energy consumption.

I’m glad that the U.S. government is thinking about long term internet infrastructure needs and is trying to plan for it now.  There are many challenges and it will require collaboration with private telecommunications companies.  Existing infrastructure needs to be replaced with fiber, rural areas need to move past 56K connectivity and wireless networks need to expand coverage and support a rapidly growing number of users.  There is a great conversation around the plan at Fred Wilson’s AVC.com and another conversation there about the parallels of broadband infrastructure to the development of the NYC subway system.

While the government works on developing its plan, Google has decided to do an experiment of its own.  Their plan is to build fiber broadband networks in a small number of cities across the U.S.  Google plans to deliver 1 gigabit per second fiber connections to homes, which is about 100 times faster than most broadband connections today.

It’s an exciting experiment and it’s great to see a private company putting up its own capital to push the broadband envelope.  Google received an overwhelming response from communities across the country that want to be part of the experiment.  Communities quickly mobilized grassroots campaigns to vie for Google’s attention.  Topeka, Kansas renamed itself to Google, Greenville, SC made a people-powered LED Google sign and Duluth, MN and Superior, WI collaborated on a joint campaign.  Google won’t be able to build in all of them, but it clearly shows that cities everywhere are passionate and eager for better broadband.

• The NYC Tech Scene Is Exploding
• New York Isn’t Silicon Valley
• 20 Hot New York City Startups
• NY’s Silicon Alley Humming Despite Slow Economy
• Tweet Tweet Boom Boom

It’s exciting watching these young companies quickly building various technology products and it has me thinking about what helps a brand new startup succeed. I thought I would look back at one of New York’s most successful startups for inspiration.  Founded in 1984, I’m talking about the Ghostbusters.  Here’s a playful look at what made them successful.

Busting into a new market
The Ghostbusters team was passionate and focused on finding and capturing ghosts.  Like many startups, this passion pushed them to pursue a business.  They were the first to build a business around capturing ghosts and as a result they enjoyed a first-mover advantage.  Time and time again the best businesses are fueled by passion.

Ground breaking technology
Catching ghosts became a reality thanks to the development of key technology.  Proton packs, traps and P.K.E. meters made a new business and industry possible.  The Ghostbusters haven’t even explored licensing out their technology to other companies or turning their own business into a franchise.  Peter says it best when he claims, “it’s going to be bigger than the microchip.”

Strong branding, cheap marketing and generating buzz
The Ghostbusters excelled at marketing their new business and didn’t even have to try that hard or put too much money into it.

Branding
Everyone knows the Ghostbusters’ name and logo.  The name is catchy and the logo is simple and iconic.

Cheap marketing
They used a variety of cheap marketing tactics:

• Cheesy television ad that still gets your attention
• A ridiculously catchy song
• They cleverly branded their car and suits as well making them instantly recognizable around the city

Generating buzz
Finally, the uniqueness of their business was new and exciting and the media was quick to catch on and promote them faster than they could keep up.

Listening to customers
It’s always important to listen to customer feedback, no matter how crazy it sounds.  Eggs frying on the counter and far-fetched ghost stories turned into business opportunities.

Assembling the right team
Assembling the right mix of talent is challenging and critically important.  If people don’t get along and work together, the overall business suffers.  The Ghostbusters have the right mix of optimism, vision, scientific/engineering talent and a little bit of comic relief.

Dealing with the unexpected
Startups are roller coaster rides and the Ghostbusters needed to work through significant challenges. It’s not every day that your office explodes or you need to combat a giant marshmallow man.

A cool office
Last but not least, they have probably the coolest startup office ever.  Their converted firehouse complete with fire pole beats all other offices I’ve seen.

sSMTP is a simple, lightweight MTA that will forward messages on a server to a configured mail server.  In my configuration sSMTP forwards mail from my Ubuntu server to Gmail.  With this configuration I don’t have to run a full mail server and can just send the few messages I have to Gmail to do the heavy lifting.

Nixtutor has a great article explaining how to configure this.  Here are the steps I used to get this working.

1.  Install sSMTP

From the command line:

sudo apt-get install ssmtp

2.  Configure sSMTP to send mail through your Gmail account

Open /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf and set the following according to your own Gmail credentials.  The first four lines were already in my config file and just needed to be set.  I needed to manually add the last three lines.

root=username@gmail.com
mailhub=smtp.gmail.com:587
hostname=username@gmail.com
FromLineOverride=YES
UseSTARTTLS=YES
AuthUser=username
AuthPass=password

Open etc/ssmtp/revaliases and add each user account you want to send mail from.  Most likely you will want to add the root account and your primary user account.

root:username@gmail.com:smtp.gmail.com:587
linuxusername:username@gmail.com:smtp.gmail.com:587

3.  Test out the configuration by sending an email to yourself

From the command line:

sudo ssmtp username@gmail.com

Then type in your email message, hit enter and then ctrl + d to send the email.  If everything is working correctly, your email will show up in your inbox.

• Over 500,000 users
• Over 1,000,000 badges have been awarded
• Over 1.4 million venues with 1200 offering specials
• Over 15.5 million checkins

Foursquare has already discussed that checking in is becoming a commodity and this week there was more news about Facebook and Twitter getting into the location game as well.  I even noticed this on my Twitter account today:

Foursquare mentioned that to compete with these threats they need to provide “the most incentive for a user to check-in.” To help reach this goal, this week they announced new analytics tools that will give businesses visibility to information about their Foursquare customers.  Businesses will be able to better understand who is visiting and hopefully use the information to improve on customer retention and acquisition.  As the Foursquare platform evolves and the analytics become more powerful I think we will see interesting promotions to bring in new customers and reward loyal ones.

The analytics tools are an important step to adding more incentive for checking in on Foursquare.  Tools like this should help get some of the 1.4 million (and counting) venues to be active participants on Foursquare.  More businesses using Foursquare and better understanding their customers should lead to innovative promotions (here are some great examples:  AJ Bombers in Milwaukee, Pazzaluna in St. Paul and Starbucks).  Valuable promotions should encourage users to check-in often and help drive new users to Foursquare as well.  Foursquare needs to be the location-based service of choice and tools like this are helping them lead the pack.