There was a great deal of buzz online yesterday about Starbucks announcing plans to offer the Foursquare mayors of their various locations discounts on coffee drinks (among other things) nationwide.

I think it would be safe to say that there are some one or two-person coffee shops already using Foursquare as a way to communicate with their tech-savvy regulars. All the announcement really did was make it OK for most people to try it out.

Analytical tools being offered to businesses by Foursquare means that as Starbucks customers with smartphones willingly check-in as they arrive, store managers and marketing departments should be able to know a little more about a significant portion of their fans, including gender, time of day they may normally visit, peak times and where they share their message. Big Orange Marketing sums it up best in a post written back when the analytics dashboard was being unveiled.

The question becomes “What else can Starbucks – or any other large or small business – do to take full advantage of what Foursquare offers?”

It could mean an additional level of interaction with customers as described in this New York Times blog post talking about the introduction of the analytical tools in March. Talking to customers is nothing new, it’s simply another way to engage them and understand what will pull them in.

For many retail entrepreneurs, the potential is a low-stress piece of the market analysis puzzle in easier reach than ever before. Well, low-stress if you don’t mind being online…

You’ll have access to a group of individuals that have (hopefully) opted-in to share their location and something about themselves – a useful set of information (particularly if you’re in the midst of an economic restructuring strategy).

It is by no means the entire picture, but it can help those looking for a first step – one that makes it a little easier for those asked to analyze the data. It may also provide a way to see if new strategies are working.

An ever better question may be “Will Foursquare truly take advantage of adapting to fulfill the needs of small businesses and their customers?”

The overall potential of Foursquare to me is endless. It could become a premiere user-generated visitors guide that doubles as a valuable tool for businesses. The only thing that could stand in their way is the emerging specter of privacy concerns (a la Facebook). They seem to be aware of that.

If they can provide a real solution for those concerns then the fun part of seeing how many ways we can apply the information collected begins.

Thoughts?

Photo: Location-based Marketing on Foursquare. Global X/Flickr

How do you wish someone a happy birthday on Facebook?

It’s an interesting thing to think about.

Do you post a birthday greeting, congratulations, or best wishes on someone’s wall or do you try to personalize it and send it as a message?

I was just wondering how people approaching talking with their friends virtually. I’m hoping that some will decide to share their answers below in the comments section.

Photo: Birthday Greetings. Bex.Walton/Flickr

There was a little noise made recently about a website called Please Rob Me. It was created to demonstrate the problems with sharing too much information online via location-based social networks like Foursquare and Gowalla.

These services allow you to use smartphones and other mobile devices to “check-in” and collect badges. They also allow you to make recommendations and suggest tips for the destinations that you visit. Some restaurants and attractions have realized that it is a great way to offer discounts or specials to regular loyal customers. New tools are being promised by Foursquare in the near future that will allow interested business owners to learn everything from their busiest time of day among that subset of customers to what happened the last time that someone came in, so I’d say that the rate of adoption may be picking up just enough…

Even if there’s been a steady adoption rate of location-based social networks, I have a feeling that it would take a dedicated thief who knew specific neighborhoods fairly well who was willing to be extremely patient to truly benefit from this information.

There is actually a group of organizations that could benefit from this type of service, though it would help if the information could be translated appropriately – law enforcement agencies.

This is still a leap but it could be a way that pro-active policing and surveillance is made easier in the future. It could be used to determine trends of movement through the city. Considering the type of information that Foursquare is preparing to roll out (and Facebook’s unofficial announcement about their plans), it wouldn’t be a stretch to create a digital map and provide a visual of a “swarm” of activity, possibly allowing  help police officers out when identifying where to place additional officers or where to step up additional patrols for events. It’s not like it hasn’t been done before. It was; for last year’s SXSW conference in Austin, TX.

We don’t necessarily need to share any information about traffic while we’re driving because – well, we already do that with Google Maps if we use it on a GPS-enabled phone.

As a matter of fact, we’ve been sharing personal information for a long time now – everything from zip codes when checking out at a major chain store to email addresses via website logins in exchange for a “cookie” that tracks where you visit. That’s probably why so many people have been sharing their homes as destinations online.

I considered adding my home as a place I could become “mayor” of easily, though I still haven’t. Even without that tidbit of knowledge, I’m certain that folks can figure out when I’m home and when I’m not.

One more thing too – just because I’ve said where I am doesn’t mean that someone isn’t home or that my neighbor isn’t next door. We post when stores and restaurants open and close too, remember?

Maybe we share too much nowadays, but we do have the ability to control it. We also seem to want to stop the fall of the public man – only we don’t want to be that public.

What do you think?

How do you connect with others in an unfamiliar place?

This is not to say that the performance of Aida was not breathtaking and enjoyable – it was both. I eventually even got into a conversation with the older woman sitting next to me about what my favorite opera was and why I was there by myself. I wasn’t actually there by myself – Betsy’s parents were somewhere near Row E; I just happened to end up with a ticket in row W.

During the intermission I saw people in the performance space that I knew but that didn’t exactly recognize me sitting in a shirt and tie – not to mention the fact that they were in their own worlds. It’s something that’s completely understandable – especially when you realize that “all the world’s a stage” (blame one of my professors in college for my accepting that truth in this context).

This meant that with the exception of the one conversation with the woman sitting next to me during the second intermission, I had no one to talk to about the performance – or anything else.

Then I pulled out the relatively new phone (yes, a Palm Pre that I still need to finish writing a review of soon) and I suddenly realized the benefit of having a gateway to the world that could fit in the palm of your hand.

The periods when the space was not filled with melodious sounds and capturing my attention I was checking emails and sending birthday text messages. I even took a couple of notes for this post – including the fact that there was a couple about three rows back who were each on their iPhone playing games and sending out tweets (and they were there together).

I learned a long time ago that you can feel like you’re by yourself even when you’re surrounded by a rather large crowd of people. A web-enabled phone allows me to have a safety-valve available for when I begin to feel that way. These folks have chosen to “follow” me or be my friend meaning most times someone is there listening to what I’m saying or willing to answer the question I’ve posted. You hope that’s the case at least.

Does it always work out as you hope? Probably not; I’m sitting at the opera trying to pick Betsy out from the back of the space with blurred vision while another friend is sitting in a bar in Philadelphia celebrating her birthday. The odds of finding some common topics get tough but the mere fact that the opportunity exists is quite important.

This new approach to the window to the rest of the world may mean that most of your friends may not live in the same city as you. It can also mean that some of these social events could lose their luster if you’re not necessarily doing that offline networking since you’re glued to your personal screen.

It could also mean that there are people who claim they are your friends for the sole purpose of keeping tabs on you who may never engage. Once you reach that level it becomes an issue of figuring exactly what it means when you call someone a friend. I will say that I’m starting to examine that issue myself right now.

The important thing was that at least for a few moments between acts, I felt connected and like somebody felt like listening.

I guess the question remains after all of this:

How do you connect?

Photo: Tweeting the What is Social CRM? 140 char answer at #soccrm | the_rab/Flickr