A lot has been made out of the game element of Foursquare (4SQ) - the fact the more checkins you do, the more you accumulate points & badges etc. Now whilst I think these elements are interesting, they are not the real deal... which is where venues offer REAL incentives for our loyalty (real meaning money - I'm with Dave McClure here http://bit.ly/9td513) And I think that Dennis Crowley (4SQ head honcho) etc know this. They also knew that, when they first launched Foursquare, any real incentives would be few and far between... therefore they decided to plug the gap with, you know what, points & badges.

Points & badges were therefore a gap filler before venues caught up - a starter motor energising user activity to help get the bigger wheels turning.

I'm sure badges etc will live on as 4SQ evolves (or, more to the point, as the rewards systems which are built on top of the 4SQ platform evolves) but they were only ever stabilisers on a fledgling LBS start up.

Imho :)

Joel
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