Foursquare Hits One Million Users… or Not
So today I jumped the gun and congratulated CEO Dennis Crowley and the Foursquare team for hitting one million users when in actuality the company fell a bit short of that milestone today. Whoops! I assumed Foursquare was using the sign up user ID as the official count to determine the one millionth user, however, Dennis Crowley corrected me and let me know that the user count was only at 983,000 the last time he checked.
After Dennis was kind enough to share that information with me I decided to do a quick calculation. According to my math, the user ID count should be at approximately 1019000 in order for Foursquare to hit one million registered users. Foursquare sees thousands of new user signups each day so Friday looks like it will be the day Foursquare crosses the milestone and joins the One Million Member Social Media Club. Well, there is no such club, but it’s not a bad idea.
Parker Liautaud Skis to the North Pole to Snag Mayor on Foursquare
On Friday, 15-year-old Parker Liautaud began an extraordinary expedition to become one of the youngest people to ski the Last Degree of the North Pole. The ultimate goal of this expedition is to help young people become more environmentally aware. With the help of GE Ecomagination, the quest is interactive with a social media twist. Fans can track Parker’s progress by visiting his social media sites which include Twitter, Facebook, flickr, YouTube, Google Earth, and Foursquare. While you can visit each site individually, Facebook is the hub for the interactive experience. Those who follow Parker have the opportunity to share their ideas and videos on how they are reducing their carbon footprint to improve the environment. According to Outside Online, the best ideas and videos submitted will be turned over to the delegates at the 2010 United Nations Environmental Conference in Bonn, Germany.
You might be asking yourself how Foursquare plays into this expedition. Foursquare is one of the many social media tools Parker is using as he makes his way to the North Pole. Although he will be checking in to various places along the way, he will most likely be creating new venues since it’s doubtful there will be a lot of venues to choose from at this point. Unlike Jim Bumgardne, aka “KrazyDad,” who never really became Mayor of the North Pole, Parker Liautaud will not only become the first Mayor of the North Pole on Foursquare, he has an excellent chance to hold down the North Pole mayorship for a very long time.