Posts tagged gaming

So at the Computers in Libraries 2010 conference, there was a contest to see who could end up as the “Mayor” of the exhibit hall on foursquare. (I won, but never got the TBA prize, lol)

Foursquare, if you are unaware, is a service that uses your cell phone to “locate” where you are. You use it to “check in” at the venue you are at, and can then see what others are doing, what type of events / stores / restaurants / etc. are in the area, and where your friends are at and what they are up to.

But let’s be honest (and this is where 8bitlibrary.com comes in), that idea is NO FUN. Why would anyone want waste their time telling people where they are? Foursquare makes the idea fun by turning your (sometimes mundane) everyday life’s travels into a game: you compete to be the “Mayor” of locations that you frequent and you can earn “badges” (like an Xbox achievement or a PS3 trophy) based on when/where/with who/how many times/etc you check-in at certain places.

What does this mean for libraries?

Being able to answer the question “what does X mean for libraries” can only be answered by first understanding X. So me, my brother, his baby are going to hit up all 5 boroughs of NYC tomorrow, trying to acquire as many badges as possible (and, in the process, experiencing NYC like I wouldn’t have experienced it before, despite living literally right over the Hudson).

Here’s the plan:

Start by taking the ferry from Hoboken to Manhattan. Boom, one badge down. Also, the Cake Boss is taped in a Hoboken bakery, and there is this mysterious badge we might be able to unlock by stopping in: We have to hit up all 5 boroughs in order to get , so we’re gonna start by taking the subway north. We’ll also be able to unlock when we are far enough north. Unfortunately, I missed out on at least 5 NYC badges by only a week because there were a few for checking in at last week’s Internet Week New York 2010. Still going to try to find some of those venues to get the badges :) specifically While we are the Bronx, we will try to hit up a few playgrounds since we will have my bro’s baby with us. If we can hit 10 playgrounds, we earn. Even if we don’t get it this day, we will both get that badge eventually. And speaking of “we’ll get them eventually” badges, you only need 5 Starbucks checks-ins to get. If you spend enough time checking in at Starbucks and become mayor, they give you $1-off discounts. If we don’t find 5 Starbucks in 1 day in NYC, we might as well give up because we fail at life. There are areas of NYC that have so many Starbucks, some are on opposite sides of the same street. Moving forward, Sunday is a few World Cup games, so we will make our way to at least 2 of them. We’ll get  no matter what, and we should be able to achieve by the end of the tournament, if not by the end of the day. Also, if by the end of the day we end up at LaGuardia airport and take a flight to South Africa, I’ll end up with and we’ll both get when we arrive! Assuming we stay in NYC, though, I’m sure we will be able to find a Bravo-rated clothes store to earn and there’s enough Zagat-rated restaurants that we will definitely earn. In our travels, we will be searching for the mysterious badge, which no one is quite sure how to earn. It’s possible that we can get it by checking in at Liberty State Park when we are back in Jersey City. I’ll let you know how that turns out. Not sure how many Apple Stores we’ll come across, but if we find 3, we get . We’re also likely to find 3 places with a photobooth for , and we’ll be closer to checking in to 20 pizza shops for. I’ve checked into art galleries in Chicago, so I think I’m close to the 10 check-ins I need for . I’m also close to checking in to 10 movie theaters for .

There’s even more badges we can earn that day, and you might be asking yourself, “How the heck are you going to get all these places in a day?” Well, we are using Ferris Bueller’s Day Off as our inspiration: he was able to hit up the whole town of Chicago in a day, and he was only in high school. Along those lines, there’s 4 badges you can earn by hitting up specific sets of locations in Chicago; those badges are no doubt inspired by him as well!

So when the adventure is over, I think I’ll really have some insight to answer the question: What does foursquare mean for libraries?!