newmediamike

Foursquare Check In

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

One of my last blog posts before the “Big Loss” was about how I finally got the latest (well for me) hot social media site – Foursquare. I mean I’m really getting Foursquare.  I signed up for Foursquare months ago but never really got into it until I discovered their Blackberry app. Since last week I have been “checking in” every where. Today I may have just gone too far with Foursquare.

I Checked In and sent the message to my Facebook and Twitter followers I was at the Quarry Medical Center and was getting my IBS checked out.  My sister in law made a comment about my detailing every move I make and it reminded me of how a lot of newbies use Twitter, when they tweet about their every move.

“Making toast”,  “Taking the dogs for a walk”, “Doing something really mundane” … well you get the gist.  I ended up doing the same.  For example, every time I dropped my daughter off at dance class I “checked in”. Only problem is I do that 3-4 times a week.  No wonder I’m now the mayor of “For The Love of It School of Dance” ! But the difference with Foursquare is there is a huge benefit to the establishments which we check into and shout out about.

Monday night while I was sitting on Queen waiting for my daughter,  I read about the Beacher Cafe on Queen St. E and found out they have an all-day breakfast. (No French Toast on weekdays). Now I’ve lived in the Beach for over 10 years and I didn’t know that! Thanks to Foursquare though I now have a new place to try out for a late breakfast.  Applications such as this will go a long way to boost local businesses. It will also help them with their online marketing as Google is now picking up on Foursquare shout outs and check ins and indexing them.

Have you discovered anything new thanks to Foursquare?

Kobo eReader Sneak Peek

Kobo is bringing out a $149 eReader sometime in May, in time for Mother’s Day.

Is this bad timing? What with the coming out next week of the Apple iPad, the saviour of the publishing industry?  Actually NO. As enamored as I am with the iPad and my belief it will save MAGAZINE and newspapers, I don’t think the Kobo will be hurt by the iPad.

A bright, sharp, high resolution, LED backlit, color LCD screen is an impressive looking display. A transmissive display with the light coming out at you can make photos, videos, web pages, and other images look great but a reflective, E Ink display which the Kobo eReader is equipped with,  uses light bouncing off the screen just like paper and ink  can more closely resemble the experience of reading a printed page.

Battery life is where electrophoretic E Ink displays really out shine (pun intended) LCD displays. As reflective displays don’t need backlights and only use a minuscule amount of power when the screen is not changing, the battery on the Kobo e-Readers can last for weeks rather than the 10 hours of the iPad.

But don’t just take my word for it … check out the demo video for the Kobo eReader.