Back in June, we noted a couple of websites that existed for the sole purpose of revving up mayor battles on Foursquare: When Will I Be Mayor?
and Be The Mayor. Today, Foursquare itself has just rolled out a small feature which should also entice users to battle for the crown.
Now, when you check-in to a venue on Foursquare via a mobile app if you’re within 10 check-ins of becoming the mayor, Foursquare will alert you how close you are on the check-in confirmation screen. But the way they do it is a bit different from simply “you need X more check-ins”, instead they tell you that “you’re now X days away from becoming Mayor”. This is an important distinction as it shows that it’s about more than raw number of check-ins.
Foursquare’s post on the issue further clarifies this:
To become Mayor of a place, you need to have checked in more days than anyone else over the last two months (60 days), so only one check-in per day counts.
That’s the way it has been for a long time, but people likely thought they could check-in over and over again in the same day to get mayorships. That’s not the case.
But is this emphasis on days something more?
Leading up to the launch of Facebook’s entry into location, Places, Foursquare’s line seemed to be that location services need to be about more than check-ins. We agree, but it might be hard for Foursquare to break away from being the “check-in service” as they popularized the term. This could be a first small step toward emphasizing prolonged loyalty at venues rather than simply the vague check-in concept.
Check-ins are now more of an overall metric (both on these post-check-in screens and on venue pages on foursquare.com).
This idea of moving towards “days there” is also in-line with Foursquare’s long-term business strategy of rewarding customer loyalty.
Either way, Mike is cheating. There’s no way he’s the mayor of TechCrunch HQ. No. Way.