Most Democrats I know are drooling over the idea of Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, men almost reptilian in their unpleasantness, spending the rest of the winter and spring travelling across country tearing into each other like speed-crazed weasels. Excuse me, speed-crazed weasels armed with Super PACs which have millions of dollars earmarked *solely* for negative advertising.

However, I think this is wrong. I am hoping that Romney pulls it out. Hell, if I was in Charleston, I would finish my coffee and head out to hold a sign. I think the best thing for President Obama and the Democrats is for someone (Romney, Gingrich, whoever) to win this primary quickly.

Once there is a single opposition candidate, a number of things will snap into place that are vital for the President’s reelection. The Obama campaign can switch from defense to offense, putting all of their formidable resources into play. Democratic activists and donors will quit their whining and get back onto the team. Not to minimize their complaints (the President has done a number of things that I strongly disagree with), but the spectre of a Republican administration underwritten by Bain Capital will remind them that now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party. The media will stop airing non-stop attacks against the President (the primary and its debates) and start giving balanced coverage to both sides.

However, the biggest bonus for Democrats isn’t how a Romney win will affect the media coverage, the base, or any other specific group. It’s how it changes the narrative of this race. A race between President Obama and Governor Romney becomes a clear choice between two people and the policies they represent. This was a core part of our messaging strategy during Governor Patrick’s reelection, and it was critical to his victory. I hope that we will see the same thing from the Obama campaign.

Right now, President Obama isn’t running against Romney, Gingrich, or any of the clowns on the other side, he is running against himself from 2008. That’s a race he can only lose. Every single person in America who supported Obama in 2008 has been disappointed by some policy or decision the President made while in office. That isn’t a critique of the President, it’s an inevitable fact of politics. There’s no way for any candidate to live up to the expectations placed on them by their supporters. As soon as they are sworn in, a candidate ceases being an avatar for our collective hopes and dreams and start having to make actual decisions. Decisions which will inevitably piss of some of their supporters. That’s just part of the gig.

Once it is Romney vs. Obama, voters will stop thinking about their disappointment with the President. They will start comparing the two and thinking about which candidate they would rather see at the helm and which direction they would like to see the country go in. Voters will think to themselves, quite rightly, “Holy shit, I have to actually vote for one of these guys.” That is a powerful change to the narrative of this race and one I think Democrats need to pivot to as soon as possible.

Taken for granted is that I think the President stacks up well in this comparison, but I could be wrong. Our strategy focused on getting the base to come back to the Governor, and Massachusetts has a lot more Democratic base than the country at large. Still, I think the narrative of direct comparison does a lot to affect how regular voters think about the campaign. Don’t forget, you are comparing this guy and this guy.

I can’t pretend I am not excited by the prospect of a fractured Republican party, millions of dollars of negative advertising being directed towards Romney (especially now that the primaries are taking place in states that matter in the general election, like Florida), and Romney having to spend millions just to get the nomination. However, I have seen this movie before. The base gets back into line, the negative attacks will be forgotten in favor of newer and shinier negative attacks, and Romney will have no problem funding the race with the change from his couch cushions.

For the President to be reelected, it’s essential for the Obama campaign pivot out of a race against his own expectations — a futile effort — and make this a clear choice between two actual candidates. The first, and most critical, step in that process is for the Republicans to pick a definitive nominee. If you want the President to be reelected, starting cheering for Mitt to wrap it up.

Also, if you are a South Carolina Republican: Vote Romney.

All of my previous blog posts on PdF have tried to capture what I felt were the major themes of the conference. However, there were a number of talks that didn’t fit into those frameworks that were still worth watching. They were random, they were inspiring, and they were delightful.

Omoyele Sowore runs Sahara Reporters out of his basement in New Jersey. From thousands of miles away, he is working to uncover corruption and helped bring down the President of Nigeria. He also had a killer story about being smuggled into the country in style.

I didn’t recognize his name in the program, but when Dan Sinker walked onstage I freaked out. Dan created the Twitter account turned internet epic @mayoremanuel, which became a sensation during last year’s Chicago Mayoral election. Dan’s talk, about what inspired the account, how he worked on it, and what happened after he was outed, was great. He was also the only person at the conference had my picture taken with.

The most notorious talk of the conference came completely out of left field. I followed Jim Gilliam on Twitter because of some random app he created, but didn’t really know much about him. Now, his talk, “The Internet is my Religion”, has been tweeted, blogged, and even featured on oprah.com. If possible without alienating the few readers I do have, I would link to it every day. This footage doesn’t do justice to the thunderous applause that interrupted Jim or to the fact that almost everyone in the room was crying by the end.

I came away from PdF inspired to keep thinking and engaging with the ideas discussed. Part of that is picking up some of the books mentioned during the various panels and planery speeches. I tend to avoid too many “internet” books since most of them are terrible. However, I kept a running list of titles in the margins of my notes as they were mentioned. This ended up a more daunting task than I had anticipated. Every single speaker mentioned two or three books which were “great” or “indispensable”. Also, if you Google most of the people I have mentioned so far, they ALSO wrote books. Still, after reviewing my notes, I was able to cut it down to the few titles that I was most excited about.

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations – Clay Shirky

The unofficial drinking game of the convention was to drink every time someone mentioned Clay Shirky (if it was serious, I wouldn’t have made it to lunch either day). I picked up this book at the pop-up book store in the lobby of the convention and just finished it yesterday. Pretty much as good as advertised, which is rare for these kinds of books. A great look at the underlying ideas behind the changes the internet is creating in society.

Hyperpolitics – Mark Pensce

I linked to Mark’s talk in an earlier blog post on the conference. Hyperpolitics is another title I picked up on the way out, and I have no idea how it will be. Still, I felt that his talk demonstrated that he is someone who loves language, so I look forward to cracking this one.

The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom – Evgeny Morozov

I have been a big fan of Morozov’s work for a while. His digital pessimism seemed to be somewhat out of fashion at PdF because of recent successes by online activists in the Middle East, but a skeptical viewpoint on these issues is an important perspective to have in the debate.

The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations – Ori Brafman

I had never heard of this book, but one of the panels I attended, “Beyond Clicktivism to On-the-Ground Action”, was basically a paean to how amazing it is. The author, Ori Brafman, was on the panel and one of the other panel participants, Jenny Beth Martin (the head of the Tea Party Patriots) basically geeked out and gushed about how much she loves the book. She said she had just read it and bought hundreds of copies to hand out to Tea Party organizers nation wide.

What Technology Wants – Kevin Kelly

I don’t remember why exactly where or when I wrote this down, but I underlined it *twice*, so there you go.

The F***ing Epic Twitter Quest of @MayorEmanuel – Dan Sinker

The tweets of @MayorEmanuel mixed in with election coverage, maps, and history of Chicago. Consider this motherf***er preordered.

By design, pdf was brimming with optimism. If you get a bunch of activists and technologists into a room, that will happen. However, there was also an undercurrent of trepidation over the future of the web. I, for one, didn’t really understand or take seriously the forces at play which could jeopardize the idea of a free and open internet. While activists were using Twitter and Facebook to overthrow dictators, they were also being tracked for advertising purposes. Amazon and Paypal decided they wouldn’t support Wikileaks after just a hint of pressure from the United States Government. What would have happened if Facebook or Twitter decided they weren’t on the side of the revolutionaries, but on the side of the Government? What would happen to everyday citizens if Google or Facebook decided to give the CIA complete access to their back-end user data to help fight terrorism. Unlike some people I work with, I don’t think it has happened yet, but scary nonetheless. Meditations on these ideas, and on the need for citizen or consumer-owned alternatives ranged from the academic to the poetic. I particularly enjoyed all of these speakers because none of them were even remotely on my radar (a reflection on me rather than on them).

Find out more, plus the videos, after the jump.

Siva Vaidhyanathan, the author of The Googlization of Everything, talked about the challenges activists face working through what are essentially corporate networks. He made the obvious point that these are all companies, we shouldn’t expect them to act for the benefit of everyone. He also castigated the audience, reminding them that they shouldn’t consider themselves “citizens of the internet” but citizens of their own countries, where political battles are being fought that could have immense impact on the future of the internet. I almost forgot about his talk, but one line really stuck with me. He said that the internet isn’t a public square; instead, someone organizing via Twitter and Facebook is conducting a “rally in a shopping mall or debate in a Starbucks.” His talk starts at the 30:29 mark in the video below and goes for about 15 min.

Professor Eben Moglan was someone who is fantastically internet famous who I had never heard of. He is a professor of law and legal history at Columbia University, and is the chief legal counsel to the Free Software Foundation. He had the unenviable task of following Dan Sinker (@Mayoremmanuel), who had one of the best talks of the conference. He proved himself more than up to the task. He made the most compelling case I have heard for identifying the forces on the internet trying to take away our online freedoms. While he was somewhat gloomy, he also presented a clear vision for a better future, plugging the project he is working on, The Freedom Box Foundation. He also delivered the killer line, “without anonymity on earth the human race will be no more.”

The final highlight was Mark Pesce, who is another person I followed on Twitter before the conference. He didn’t make any particularly insightful points, and I overhead a lot of people talking about his presentation as BS. Still, I liked it. It was conference plenary as performance art. If nothing else, he intrigued me enough that I bought his book on the way out of NYC.

I have considered myself a technological optimist, frequently arguing that most companies aren’t out to screw us and that everything is getting better. I still to believe that we should blame stupidity before we look for sinister motives. Still, these are big companies and since I do most of my professional, political, and personal work inside these networks, it does seems as if I should have my eyes open a bit more to the potential consequences and downfalls. But let’s be honest, saying you are going to “be aware” of something is really BS. Am I going to change my behavior? A bit. I am going to take some concrete steps to support privacy and free software. I made a small contribution to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, I switched back to Firefox for my browser, I am going to try to use more open-source software, and I am going to update and use my Disapora profile a bit more. Not earth-shattering, but it’s a start.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the use of technology in global activism was without a doubt one of the most popular topics in the convention. The plenary session was packed, as were the panels. Understandably so, with speakers who helped cause the Tunisian revolution and long-time bloggers for Egyptian freedoms who were in the heart of Tahrir Square. Beyond just activists, there were a number of academics and first-hand observers who spoke more to the bigger picture of networked revolutions.

I don’t think I have mentioned it here, but I have been extremely dubious of the role that technology and social media played in the recent revolutions in the Middle East. With every magazine profile or newspaper article on the “Twitter revolution” or the “Facebook revolution”, my skepticism grew. I didn’t really believe that these tools could have played such a major role. Revolutions are hard and messy business, requiring on-the-ground organizing as well as extreme courage in the face of adversity. In the US, I have seen Twitter and Facebook breed a kind of complacent slacktivism.

Turns out I was sort of right, but mostly wrong. Check out the videos after the jump.

The most prominent speakers were Alaa Abd El Fattah, a long-time Egyptian democratic activist who was blogging and tweeting from the heart of Tahrir and Riahd Guerfali, who has run a website critical of Tunisian government for a number of years. They had amazing stories, and Alaa had some great points about how many different kinds of activists — unions, students, online activists, and others — were involved in the Egyptian protests. However, they didn’t have the bigger picture perspective I was craving. Sure, THEY used technology, but what about everyone else? Dr. Rasha Abdulla, a professor at the American University of Cairo and Zeynep Tufekci, a sociologist at the University of Maryland, answered my question and then some. They gave a great big picture view of how technology impacted the revolution in Egypt. In particular, Zeynep Tufekci (who I now follow on Twitter as @Techsoc) did an amazing job knocking down Malcolmn Gladwell’s infamous New Yorker article on how the internet has nothing to do with what is happening in the Middle East. In fact, Mr. Gladwell ended up serving as quite the punching bag for most of the convention.

If you can only watch one of the talks, I recommend you watch Dr. Tufekci’s, I liked it so much I went to her panel, “Getting Beyond Anecdata: The Global Digital Activism Data Project”, later in the day. Chalk this up to “Josh’s love of oddly specific panels”. The panel was mostly sociologists talking about their nascent studies to an audience of sociologists. Still, it was pretty cool to hear from a grad student who had been studying media consumption habits in Egypt when the revolution started. She shelved her research and put together an entirely new study in a matter of days. She literally was in the middle of Tahrir, trying to get protesters to fill out questionnaires about their usage of the internet! Interesting stuff and while there haven’t been conclusions yet, they sort of leaked that (when you control for other factors) it looks as if social media users were far more likely to be protesting. That also tracks to a recent Pew poll which found Facebook users in America are more politically active. Also, I sat next to Clay Shirky!

While the focus was on the Middle East, it is important to remember that there are people fighting for more honest, democratic, and transparent governments around the world. An important reminder of that came when a soft-spoken and relatively shlubby gentleman came up on stage to rave introductions from the conference organizers. Marko Rakar is a good government activist in Croatia who has received a seemingly equal number of international accolades and nights in jail. His talk was a great example of what one person can do with a little bit of know-how and a big chunk of data.

I feel like most of my “big picture” insights are obnoxiously banal. Technology and social media played a huge role in the Egyptian revolution and is still playing a huge roles in revolutions across the Middle East and around the world. Duh. I really don’t know why I was ever that skeptical. Technology and social media also played a huge role in the Deval Patrick Campaign, in Conan O’Brien leaving NBC and moving to TBS, and the last time you bought a pair of shoes. They are playing a huge role in everything. It is no wonder that in Egypt, and around the world, the ability to grow your network, to communicate with like-minded people you wouldn’t have met otherwise, to have dispersed planning of large actions, and to create and disseminate your own media are things that wouldn’t have been possible even 5-10 years ago. It wasn’t a Facebook Revolution or a Twitter Revolution, but it was a revolution of people with Facebook and Twitter accounts.

When you bring up government and new media, the mind jumps to some of the cool public-facing stuff coming out of the executive branch (Whitehouse.gov, West Wing Week, etc.). However, it was clear at PDF that there are an increasing number of smart people within the Government working hard to improve things at every level. Not just using communications tools to help citizens connect with their government, but also using them to help government employees talk to each other and break down bureaucratic barriers. While it was clear most of them are facing an uphill battle, the relatively large number of local, state and federal employees who were at the conference (not just as speakers) shows how many smart and dedicated public servants are up to the task. The highlight of the Gov 2.0 speakers was Vivek Kundra, who talked about the success the federal government has already had:

Besides Kundra, there were a few other high-ranking plenary speakers. I had no idea that Senator Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY) was such a leader in pushing for transparency within the Senate. Also, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) seemed to have some well-intentioned ideas around using more technology, but I was disappointed that he didn’t seem willing to credit the administration with any success. He does have an outstanding Twitter handle: @jasoninthehouse.

Beyond just the main speakers, I went to one of the breakout sessions on Gov 2.0. The session, titled “Changing the Government From the Inside”, featured a number of staff from federal agencies as well as the new media director for the city of New York (full list here). I found this panel particularly illuminating and frustrating. All of the speakers were smart, doing amazing work, and stymied at seemingly every turn by competing interests and bureaucracy. My favorite panelist was Richard Boly, (@Beaurichly) the director of the State Department’s Office of eDiplomacy. He discussed a variety of projects designed to help the State Department communicate internally that are built inside the secure firewall. These included Diplopedia, an internal Wiki, and the recently launched Corridor, a sort-of Linkedin for diplomats. I had never thought about the degree to which creating internal tools can be even more important than external ones in changing the culture of an agency (or company, campaign, etc). Boly elaborated on his panel remarks in a plenary talk later in the day:

It is great to see these kinds of success stories, but based on what I heard on the panel, they seemed to be the exception rather than the norm. It was also frustrating to see that it is still very hard to get involved in the process (If you aren’t Anil Dash or Jeff Jarvis). As someone with an interest in international relations and some experience doing internet-y things, I asked Boly after the panel what kinds of career options there might be short of joining the foreign service. The answer? Not many. It is either commit to the State Department for a big chunk of your career or wait until you are much older and there are some unpaid fellowships (Even those are mostly for academics). There have to be ways to make it easier to move between government and the private sector during one’s career. Political appointees do it (and it does raise a lot of ethical questions), but people who are doing most of the hard work of governance don’t. That means that innovation from within Government stays in Government, while innovation in the private sector stays in the private sector. As it continues to innovate, government will need more digital strategists, internal project managers, designers, and coders, and the need for career flexibility will get more important.

While it was particularly interesting to me and there was an entire track dedicated to it, the topic of Government 2.0 (or egovernment, or We-government, or whatever) clearly didn’t have much juice at the conference. The real buzz was around global activism. You could feel palpable excitement during the plenary speakers on that topic and it was the small audience for the panel I attended was mostly made up of new media directors for various government agencies. On the one hand, this stinks. If the tech community moves on to the next shiny object now that President Obama has been in office and whitehouse.gov is built on Drupal, we risk the gains we have made or the ability to make more progress. On the other hand, maybe this is a good thing. It seems that for the first time, we have smart and strong new media advocates at almost every level of government. It isn’t sexy, but they are working through the hard slog of creating institutional reform and maybe they could use some space. It doesn’t need to be sexy, it is more important to be seen as grudgingly essential. And really, you can set up as many Twitter accounts or a Facebook pages as you want, without those internal reforms, you really aren’t changing anything.

click for full-sized screenshot

While the resulting website is not that great (points for minimalism, less so for burying the Facebook/Twitter links). I find the strategy here intriguing. Likely it is of necessity. Websites are relatively complicated and expensive, Facebook pages (and Twitter accounts, and other stuff) can be online in a few minutes. A small campaign trying to get their presence started is better served to start with social networking accounts right away and then, like Lee did here, use that to actually drum up interest in the website. Still, most digital strategy is very website-centric, especially for campaigns. Interesting to think that maybe that is becoming outmoded.

It also occurred to me yesterday that maybe this is a spammy end-around run on Facebook not permitting Pages to send out bulk messages. I certainly went through to the event page and clicked on their site at the appointed time (which I probably wouldn’t have done for a message). This theory was bolstered when I received a second invite to the same event, which is taking place tomorrow at noon. Doing it once is sort of interesting and innovative, but If they arn’t launching another version of their site at noon tomorrow, I will be displeased. Also, the damn site could ask me for a donation or for my email address or something. If you are going to go dark side, do it right.

Don’t Forget Independents

Someone on Twitter (whose name I can’t find because of Twitter’s GODAWFUL search capabilities) pointed out that my spreadsheet completely forgot independents. Great point! During both of the past gubernatorial elections we have had strong, independent, right-leaning challengers, Tim Cahill in 2010 and Christy Mihos in 2006. One would assume that, barring a major third party conservative candidate, every single one of those votes would go to the Republican. First off, I dispute that assumption strongly. During the campaign, when Tim Cahill started to lose votes, we saw them split evenly between the Governor and Charlie Baker; Massachusetts Independents are a weird bunch. Let’s take a look at the final totals:

Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that every single Independent voter AND every single Republican voter would vote Republican in the upcoming Presidential election. That means 938,970 Republican votes in 2006 and 1,149,261 Republican votes in 2010. Neither of those comes close to President Obama’s total. So, we see that the independent candidates don’t even matter. If you combine Charlie Baker’s votes with Tim Cahill’s votes, you still come in just shy of Scott Brown’s vote total. Far lower than President Obama’s 1,904,047 votes. Point Josh.

Don’t forget Mitt Romney

My boss, Charles Steelfisher, argued that the key flaw in my theory is Mitt Romney. If he is elected, then not only will there be a Massachusetts connection but there will be a moderate candidate at the top of the ticket. That argument doesn’t hold if you look at the numbers. When he was running for Governor and MORE moderate than he is now, he won 1,091,988 votes. Plus you could argue that both Scott Brown and John McCain had reputations for being moderate – something that doesn’t help them break 1,200,000.

However, I think his argument is more of a messaging thing, which makes it kind of hard to argue against with pure numbers. The race is won as the field is formed, and the combined moderate appeal of Romney and Brown could swing a bunch of votes… maybe. But I don’t necessarily buy it. Romney has already spent the last 5 years distancing himself from Massachusetts and trying to obfuscate every moderate thing he ever said. Those are trends that are going to get worse, not better, as the Republican primary heats up. I don’t think the Barnstormin’ Mormon can help Senator Brown.

Getting more popular

In a conversation with long time City Hall observer Jordan Newman, he argued that while my numbers were sound, Senator Brown is more popular and well-known now than he has ever been before. That means that my numbers don’ t accurately reflect the kind of support he is likely to get in the upcoming election.

Good point, but polling is very different than voting – different kinds of people are involved and they give their responses for different reasons. Even if you take Senator Brown’s polling numbers as gospel, any poll is only a snapshot in time. In April 2010, Governor Patrick was polling at 34%. Nine months later, he won a closely contested election with 48.5% percent of the vote.

So there we have it. Three good arguments and my attempts to rebut them. Anything I am missing? Do you think Scott Brown is a shoo-in? Doomed? Just kind of a shmuck?

Now that you are done, you should promise yourself that you will watch the entire thing every time it comes around. I just did.

Since this is going to be a critique, I feel like I should admit right off that bat that I am a Foursquare nut. I have been using the service for a long time now and I really enjoy checking in, badges, the whole nine yards. However, based on my experience and some recent conversations, I think Foursquare is in a lot of trouble and won’t move out of its core active user base unless they make some changes.

If Foursquare doesn’t embrace customer service and begin to become a credible part of the small business toolkit, they are doomed.

In many of their public statements and their product priorities, Foursquare has shown themselves a is a remarkably arrogant company that spends too much time focusing on the “cool” parts of the product at the expense of generating revenue and building real value into their product. I think while Foursquare is focusing on the social aspects (tips, photos, points), neat technical stuff (recommendations) and on high profile badges/partnerships, it should be focusing more on getting businesses to take control of their locations and on negotiating tangible benefits for users.

Are Users Checking Out?

I still am a pretty active Foursquare user, but I am getting tired of it. I only check in if I remember to or if I have a specific goal in mind (Mayorship of the Causeway St. Dunkin Donuts, you will be mine). I know several friends who were once avid users but whose rate of check-in and general interest have waned. Everyone got back into it when the new version launched, but that hype seems to have only lasted a week or two. A key problem for a lot of people I talk to (and feel myself) is that since Foursquare is getting more popular and Mayorships are harder to hold on to, what’s the point of checking in? If I am never going to be mayor at the majority of the places I go,

Seriously, why should I bother with any of this?

why should I bother checking in at all? So I can earn more points and be 14^th of my friends for the week instead of 16^th?

According to a recent survey of check-in services conducted by Hill Holiday, over 1/3 of respondents said that more deals & specials from businesses would increase their usage of location-based social networks. Beyond that, fully 82% of respondents say they want to see more brands offering deals/specials to loyal customers – 82%!!!!

Besides just responding to what users want, Foursquare needs to evolve in order to fight off new competition. Foursquare pioneered and is still the industry standard for social check-in experience, but that won’t provide users with enough value to keep them on the service in the face of new competitors. Several startups, like Boston’s own Scavngr, are launching strong challenges and delivering a more fun check-in experience.

Foursquare Needs to Start Caring about Small Businesses — Not just Bravo

I ran what I like think is a pretty major brand and a medium-sized business on Foursquare (The Deval Patrick Campaign). We had multiple location, earned media attention, and a history of pushing boundaries with technology. I entered the campaign excited to partner with Foursquare or at least find a way to get the Foursquare community in Massachusetts excited about the campaign.

I was able to quickly set up a venue at campaign HQ and applied to become manager. I also offered a pretty lame special, a free bumper sticker on check-in. I emailed Foursquare to ask about the possibility of a partnership or some kind of special deal, and then I waited. And waited. And waited. I didn’t hear from Foursquare for months. I didn’t get a response until August 18, 2010 (coincidentally, the day Facebook Places launched).

When I did hear from them, it was a form email approving me as manager and rejecting the deal I was offering (I had misspelled something that made the deal unclear). I never heard from them again, even after someone vandalized our venue by posting a tip saying “Vote Charlie Baker” and I filed a complaint.

I have talked to others who have had similar experiences. Creating your own badge? Costs around $15,000 or more unless it would be a high-profile media hit for Foursquare. Forget about hearing back from them if you are a small business. This is absurd and not a way for Foursquare can be sustainable or to grow.

Foursquare should look to Groupon

Foursquare needs to emulate Groupon’s investments – both of money, culture, and organizational infrastructure – into building up a sales force. Groupon’s success is based on the hundreds of members of the sales team calling local businesses and getting them to sign up for the service. Foursquare should follow suit by at least staffing up a few reps per city to help local businesses optimize their pages and deal with the kinds of issues I had. Right now, it is pretty slim pickings.

It is time to get serious about social and making Foursquare valuable

All of this sale force and client relations stuff is boring and it is expensive. You aren’t going to get the front page on Mashable or be the talk of SXSW doing it, but Foursquare isn’t a startup anymore; it’s time to become a real business, start making making and grow into something I can’t imagine not using – like Facebook or Google. Some people (probably Foursquare’s founders) will probably say that not focusing on the gaming aspects is moving away from the social core of the experience. Maybe, but if you start giving people a tangible reason to check in, something as simple as $1 off a drink, all of a sudden users start checking Foursquare to find places near them with good deals. When they are at a venue, they have a tangible reason to check-in beyond reading useless “tips” or finding out they are 23 days away from becoming Mayor. Users generate buzz at the bar as people who don’t know about Foursquare ask why they are showing their phones to the bartender. Maybe users even start telling their friends about great deals they found the night before. That sounds pretty social to me.

At least get venues to start offering deals on check-in instead of just to the Mayor. I feel like I am taking crazy pills.