Foursquare

I started working in London a few months back, and that involves a fair amount of commuting. In such a densely populated place, there are lots of places to go, and sometimes you want to get some real life advice from real life people about the places near you.

Geo location applications are becoming more and more popular, and four square is leading the way in the mainstream. The concept is that once you sign up, you load the app (I use iPhone) and press 'places'. It shows you all the venues that are in your proximity, and you can find either one you are looking for, or one you didn't know about and go there. once there, you 'check in' and it logs you as having been at that venue. the more often you do this leads you towards the goal of becoming that locations 'Mayor'... I am mayor of my office, much to the dismay of the previous mayor!

You can add tips about the locations, so if you visit a restaurant and you have a particularly good meal, you can add a tip to recommend that dish to others. I had a meal in Poole over the weekend based on a recommendation and it really was very good, and used a voucher code recommended for 25% off the bill!

You can also collect badges, such as 25 locations visited, 4 locations in one day, and my favourite, 'I'm on a boat'. You can add friends much like facebook etc, this can be great as you can let them know where you are so they can join you.

If your response is you don't want people to know where you are', don't check in :)

It takes up very little time of my day, but makes an otherwise long journey a bit of a challenge, as I am slowly but surely heading towards mayor of platform 18 of waterloo station.

and its free :)