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.

Came across an older post on a talk he did at Google this past May.  He talked about how technology is disrupting entrenched industries like media and how it has great potential to cause massive changes in other industries, specifically highlighting consumer finance, education, energy, health care and government.

I found the talk so interesting I actually started taking notes while I watched it.  The video is about an hour long or if you want a quick summary my notes are below.

Lessons From Media

• The media industry is being significantly disrupted by the Internet.
• Power and control is shifting from institutions to individuals.
  • This sounds obvious, but when you step back and think about it, I think it’s really significant.
  • For example, before the Internet, think of how difficult it was for an individual to publish ideas for a large audience.  Today with a blog I can make the same ideas available to a global audience essentially instantly all on my own for free.
• Startups don’t need as much capital to “take a shot” at large institutions because they can leverage a lot of free and relatively inexpensive technologies to get to market faster.
• Conversations on the web are exponential.  A blog post or comment can be instantly propagated to a huge audience through various web services.
• Internet technologies are disrupting businesses that are not sustainable.  Fred frames sustainable business as something that could go on forever.
• Key is to start small and solve a tiny piece of the problem first.

What’s next?  Industries that are end to end digital.

Consumer Finance

• Peer to peer lending
• Virtual currency
• New banks, built from scratch
• Social, collaborative investing services

Education

• Open course content, lesson plans, curriculum, etc.
  • This content will become commoditized.
  • Aggregating existing content will be important for sourcing the best out there.
• Web will become even more important as a digital transcript to tell your story.
  • Importance of a traditional diploma will decrease.
  • The increasing cost of higher education vs. the financial gains of having the diploma will hit a tipping point and the system will bust.
• The web will be the textbook.
  • Why pay publishers for books when the same information is online for free?
• What can be learned from the home schooling model?

Energy

• Smart grids will happen.
• Micro grids will allow people to sell surplus energy back into the grid.
• As more smart energy management devices are introduced into homes, businesses, etc. there will be a lot of data to analyze.

Health Care

• More challenging problems and not completely end to end digital.
  • Doctor is the middleman.
• Digitizing health records and effectively sharing this information across systems and providers.
  • Need to be able to securely share and collaborate with this data similar to ways emerging in social media.
  • Someone is going to get this right and the flood gates will open for development.
• People are using the web and its resources to find answers to health problems outside of traditional health care systems.
  • Meetup example about people forming groups around specific health problems.

Government

• Communication channels in government need to become more open.
  • The White House’s site is taking a more open and social approach.
• SeeClickFix example.
• See it happening at the local level first.
  • NYC Data Mine is opening up data from New York government agencies to view and use for development.
    • Sponsoring the NYC Big Apps contest.
    • Washington DC is doing something similar with Apps for Democracy.