Checking In – Check It Out

Watching the mid-term US elections from the comfort of my UK office has been absolutely fascinating. I am not American, and, I must admit, am rather naive when it comes to American politics, unless you count an education inspired by The West Wing repeats. The fascination for me hasn’t been the rise of the Tea Party or the drubbing most first term Presidents inevitably get, it’s the social element.

This morning when I powered up the internet’s seismograph, otherwise known as Tweetdeck, I was inundated with tweets from US friends. Most of the posts it has to be said, were automated via Foursquare. Foursquare, if you don’t know it, is a location-based game; users “check in” to venues and can earn points or badges along the way. For the US mid-terms the team behind Foursquare launched a dedicated election page; when users checked into polling booths they would receive an official badge. A “check in” is normally broadcast via the users’ social networks, hence the reason my twitter stream was full.