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Free commuter daily Metro and Foursquare have teamed up on what is perhaps the most interesting marriage to date involving the shiniest new object in the social media world.

The nitty gritty as reported by my pal Kristin Laird of Marketing Mag (note -I am quoting her directly here):

  • People who follow Metro on Foursquare will receive alerts when they are close to a location mentioned in Metro: someone close to a restaurant reviewed in Metro would receive a “tip” about the restaurant and a link to the full review at MetroNews.ca.
  • Metro will feature Mayor Deals every Friday in the Going Out section–a new advertising opportunity for businesses looking to reach Metro‘s readers.

Some initial thoughts on this:

  • This is an impressive play by Metro in terms of generating ad revenue for a paper that depends on it as a source of income. At first glance it seems an example of old media and new media co opting each other. It does not appear to me to be a zero sum game whereby someone must lose; Metro gets ads and Foursquare cred/exposure. Maybe I will eat these words but hey, if so, served with a fru fru reduction sauce, they’ll be tasty.
  • Foursquare is also making a good move that will help propel it beyond its simple, somewhat limited current usage as a game-like tool for people who want to tell the world what rat hole they are getting their/eat/drink/shop on at. Foursquare has already teamed up with Harvard re some interesting applications. Still, this represents a new frontier.

What other new applications of this tool will we see?

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