According to the Foursquare website, the mobile program is “a friend-finder, a social city guide and a game that challenges users to experience new things and rewards them for doing so.” Users check in to real-world venues on the Foursquare database and by acquiring multiple visits, they are able to give “tips” to their community about the best places to spend their time.

Colleges across the nation have begun to utilize this social networking opportunity for their own campus community. Recently, Foursquare partnered with Harvard and several other colleges to implement the program onto their campuses.  Currently in its beta stage, it is already showing signs of support and promise.

“We have about 50 schools signed up and up to 200 on the waiting list”, Crowley said. These include Stanford, Syracuse as well as Crowley’s alma mater, New York University, where other founders also attended.

Users are also given discounts and incentives to further frequent various venues. “As you check in to places, we start to learn more about you, we start to teach your friends about the places that you go to… like this recommendation engine for the real world, making locations come alive,” Crowley said. “[The tips] all become like little bread crumbs that people start contributing to the system, and overall the service becomes smarter and we can provide better opportunities for our users.”

Foursquare.com states that checking into venues can benefit a school community by “encouraging students to explore their campus and participate in campus events, communicating campus traditions and historical facts about the university and facilitating social connections… Fostering deeper school pride.”

Crowley commented, “It’s great because it’s like they’ve built it into the orientation for freshmen. You can use this to explore the campus and it’ll help you find places to go and you can add trivia to various places on campus.”

Greg Fitzgerald, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’12, already uses Foursquare. “It’s like making the virtual world real,” Fitzgerald said. “If the destination is significant and I want to share it with people, I’ll go on Foursquare.

Some students, though, such as Stephen Williams, FCLC ’12, feel reluctant towards implementing Foursquare at Fordham. “The fact that others can see that you’ve checked in somewhere and instantly have access to your contact information has kept a lot of people from joining it,” Williams said. “Though I’m fascinated by the app’s ability to bring together complete strangers, and I always appreciate the tips I read at places I’ve never been too.”

Keith Eldridge, dean of students at FCLC,  also had similar feelings towards the program. “I’m always cautious of technology that allows people to monitor other people… I would worry about student reactions about privacy, even if it was a voluntary thing,” Eldridge stated. “I also wonder about its effectiveness on a campus such a Lincoln Center, with mainly a central building and a residence hall.”

Originally spawning from a personal desire to “find and meet up with friends after we were all laid off in the dot-com bust of the ’90s,” Crowley joked, it has grown immensely and is used by “over 3 million users worldwide since September 2010.”

Although still in its initial phase, foursquare is quickly revolutionizing the digital community. Expanding globally, the company is still able to give a genuine local feel for a place. “We’ve applied [recommendations] to things in the actual world, and not just places, but the people you hang out with and the places that you go to and the new things you experience, “ Crowley said.