“World of Fourcraft” uses Foursquare's framework and Google Maps API, to create a social game social media marketers should look at for lessons on how to encourage clients, fans, and followers to become more active and swear allegiance to your brand.
A group of hackers at the Game Hackday event in NYC created a game of Risk using Foursquare’s framework and Google Maps API. The two-day event is a nonprofit blend of gaming and hacking aimed at creating mentorship for hackers.
Fourteen frameworks, hardware systems, and APIs were made available to this year’s participants, including Foursquare, Kinect, FTW, Twilio, and RTMPNODEJS. “World of Fourcraft” was an obvious choice for the People’s Choice Award. Taking second, placing above “Twetris” which allows you to expand your Twitter following simply by playing Tetris.
“World of Fourcraft” turns Foursquare into a game of “Risk” based in New York City, with the five Burroughs competing for the ultimate victory. A user can login and swear alligiance to their choice of Burrough. The goal is to get more activity with your Burrough buddies than the rest.
This has to make any social media fan wonder what the possibilities could become with a good Foursquare developer. How can you customize the Facebook platform to encourage clients, fans, followers to become more active?
Think of the possibilities alone with the hospitality industry. Not to mention sporting events, conferences, and other large audience events.
Here several more Foursquare-based games:
All of these can be found on Foursquare.com/Apps. As more third-party vendors introduce Foursquare applications, the company-specific value Foursquare can bring to the table will continue to grow. Sounds a lot better than launching a forum on a subfolder to attract users, doesn’t it?