Foursquare and changing behaviors

I don't always like to post on the newest, shiniest technology out there.  It makes me feel like a front runner -- like rooting for the Dallas Cowboys, New York Yankees and Duke Basketball.  But Foursquare has led me to it.

With the holidays and a general sense of busyness, I haven't been up on the techiest of news.  Despite that, it's hard to ignore the noise that Foursquare and other location-based apps are predicted to make in 2010.  When Foursquare exploded onto the scene earlier this year at SXSW, I was unimpressed.  New products like this launch so frequently, they feel like a dime a dozen.  I did join eventually, using the product in an echo chamber that consisted only of "tech friends" and no actual ones.  Because I use social technologies to enhance existing off-line relationships (and rarely to build new ones), it took the addition of a few good friends to Foursquare for me to appreciate the service.  One of its key features was what I deemed to be the missing piece for mobile social networks early this year.  And once my friends showed up, the thing that makes a product truly innovative happened: my behavior changed.

Here are a few examples:

• Planning a pub crawl with a friend that uses Foursquare, with the goal of trying to win the Foursquare points battle in my city
• Actually dragging myself off the couch to meet friends, with some motivation coming the fact that I would be tallying checkins on Foursquare
• Getting heckled by a friend due to a series of "effeminate" [sic] checkins, then making a point of checking in at more masculine places
• When meeting friends, relying on checkins to replace texting the location to meet

The highest compliment your product can receive is: "It changed the way I ________".  Congrats to Foursquare for making me feel that way.