With FourSquare everyday tasks are Social

FourSquare is getting a lot of press lately.  The service is a cross between location tracking, reviews, social network, and game play.  As you travel around your city you enter tips and reviews of the places you frequent.  Leaving virtual notes for others to find.  The more notes you leave the more points you earn.  Points turn into badges that add the element of game play.  It’s a compelling concept that may have some legs, but most likely this is an early example of things to come.  The big picture is that Social Game Play will be applied to everything.  Some ideas:

• Community TV Watching.  We all know it is coming – but how cool would it be if there was a social game element to LOST.  The first person in your social group to find the hidden item in the scene wins!
• News / Local News:  When will the major news outlets start to reward the amateur news gatherers?  CNN already provides them fame as part of the iReport.  Next step it Fox giving “badges” for the first person to submit that cop beating video.
• Shopping:  This is obvious and is already happening.  But soon it will happen in a big way via your mobile phone.
• Work:  Non-competitive companies could create “work-groups” that allow sharing of best practices.   Imagine if you were connected to 10 other internet marketers across the country that work in different companies but work together on campaigns.  Then have those work-groups compete against other similar work groups for fame and fortune.  (this sounds a bit out there — but there might be something here)
• School:  Let’s think about bringing social game elements to education

Expect a lot of Social Game Play to seep into all facets of our life.   From major things like retirement investing to simple entertainment like BeJeweled.