New Mayor at Town Hall

Clover Moore may be Lord Mayor of the City, but Craig W is the Mayor of Sydney Town Hall.

That’s at least according to Foursquare, the latest GPS location-based social networking tool that has taken the U.S. by storm and is starting to make inroads here.

Foursquare allows users to “check-in” via a portable device at various locations around the city collecting points along the way, unlock explorer badges, as well as challenge their friends to who can visit the most locations each week.

Users who check-in most frequently at a venue become its “mayor”.

Poeple are able to leave tips for each other about where they’ve been. If a retailer is having a sale, a Foursquare user can add that information into the service and all other users in the vicinity can be notified.

Likewise if a user receives bad service at a venue, he or she can alert other Foursquare users of their experience.

Online social media bible Mashable has called Foursquare “the next Twitter”, and the numbers so far back this up. In only a year it has added nearly 700,000 users worldwide.

120,000 people alone joined in the 10 days to March 25, says co-founder Dennis Crowley.

In Australia, Foursquare had its first “swarm” – where over 50 users are checked into the same location at once – in early March.

Businesses are jumping onto the Foursquare wagon too. It’s big business in the US where shops, restaurants and bars across the nation offer special promotions to Foursquare users and promote themselves through the service.

Foursquare has also begun forming partnerships with names such as the New York Times, MTV and Vodafone UK.

And businesses in Sydney have now started to embrace it – According to Foursquare’s website, Sporters Bar and Bistro at The Menzies Hotel, the Wagamama restaurant chain and Baroque Bistro Patisserie in the Rocks all have specials for Foursquare “mayors”.

As more Sydneysiders succumb to the lure of Foursquare, it surely will begin to have an impact on how we explore our city.

At last, an internet social networking service that gets us off our computers and out of our houses.