Will Foursquare replace "Wer r u?" or "San k n?" text messages in the Philippines? (Updated)

Foursquare may not be immediately big, but it's the start of a 

new generation of sites that brings online engagement to the real world.

A conversation over Twitter with good friend @RJMarmol over an article published on ABS-CBN's website "Filipinos no longer text addicts" started me thinking that the current bid of Philippine telcos to push mobile internet usage is really gaining ground.

Here's an excerpt:

Text messaging is no longer the most popular means of conveying holiday greetings.

This holds true among the 71 million combined subscriber base of Smart Communications Inc. and Globe Telecom.

Instead of sending their Christmas and New Year greetings via SMS or short message service during the recent holidays, the cellular subscribers preferred to call and/or post their greetings in various social networking sites.

Data provided by Globe, the country’s second-largest mobile phone operator with about 26 million subscribers, showed that SMS traffic declined year-on-year by 6% on December 24; 12% on December 25; and 9% on December 31 and January 1.

Smart claimed that SMS traffic went up on the same days albeit not as high as it used to be in the past years when handsets then still lack the capability to connect to the Internet.

“Our SMS traffic for Christmas and New Year is up over last year, but the growth is not as strong as prior years. But social media through our mobile network is definitely up,” said Smart spokesman Mon Isberto.

Currently, Globe has been heavily promoting I-Phones and other handheld devices that can make use of mobile internet connections.  Despite problems with the reliability of its mobile internet connection (you can see Filipino tweets ranting about its poor connections), several of my friends have opted in to their post-paid plans because of the phones bundled with the plan.

Smart mobile internet (which is what I use) seems to have no problem connecting anywhere I go, but I am not sure if it bundles I-Phones or I-Pad 3G with its postpaid plans.

In anycase, with the current figures on text messaging use versus mobile internet and mobile broadband, it seems to indicate the success of current marketing efforts of telcos to get its subscribers to use the more costly service (10 pesos for 30 minutes vs 1 peso per text).

However, it can be argued that in 30 minutes (assuming that the mobile internet connection is fast enough), one can view and send more information (not just text, but pictures and short videos).

Now, after Christmas and New Year Greetings, the message that accounts for a lot of text traffic perhaps will be "wer r u?" or "san k n?".  One sure sign that mobile internet will be catching on is if instead of texting, people start logging on the internet using their phones or tablets to see their friend's status on Twitter or Foursquare.

I am aware that Twitter allows you to geo-tag your tweets (with longitude and latitude), but Foursquare brings something more to plain geo-tagging which is actually a "game" element.

Users of Foursquare apart from "checking in" at a venue, or posting a message notifying their friends about where they are, get the added benefit of having their check-in logged and assigned points.  Apart from that, the points allow them to accumulate badges and rank (mayorships) depending on what venues they visit and how many times they visit the venue.

It is this gaming element, perhaps, that will make Foursquare a hit among the younger set of 3G phone users given some more time.

Foursquare was launched on March 11, 2009 and while it hasn't reached the mind-boggling proportions of Facebook in the Philippines, it is showing signs of catching on here.  

It describes itself on its website as:

Foursquare is a mobile application that makes cities easier to use and more interesting to explore. It is a friend-finder, a social city guide and a game that challenges users to experience new things, and rewards them for doing so. Foursquare lets users "check in" to a place when they're there, tell friends where they are and track the history of where they've been and who they've been there with. For more information on how foursquare works, see our searchable

The latest statistic I've found on the number of Foursquare users around the world comes from Techcrunch. One article says that on April 22, 2010, Foursquare registered its One Millionth User -- which is a milestone.

Congratulations QuakeHOLD I. of Escondido, California, you’re Foursquare’s one millionth user. Or, at least, you’re the user with the one millionth ID. Yes, the much talked-about location-based service crossed the milestone today.

And another more recent article published on July 7, 2010 from Techcrunch pits Foursquare with Gowalla (another GPS based social networking site) and it shows more current stats:

As of today, Foursquare has just over 1.9 Million users. Gowalla has around 340,000.

At its current pace, Foursquare will surpass 2 Million users within a week.

Foursquare is adding almost 10x as many new users per day as Gowalla and, despite a significantly larger base, has a daily percentage growth rate that is 75% higher than Gowalla’s.

Currently, Foursquare has about 5.6 Million venues and Gowalla has 1.4 Million venues.

1 in 3 venues on Foursquare have been checked into only once or never. That number is 1 in 4 on Gowalla.\

The most popular venue name is “Home,” followed by national fast food chains like “McDonald’s” and “Burger King”

On Foursquare, men outnumber women almost 2-to-1. Exact gender breakouts are not available for Gowalla, but the most popular first names suggest a similar distribution.

Still, according to PC World, Foursquare has reached 3 million users.

Foursquare hit the three million user mark over the weekend, less than two months after the location-based service passed the two million users mark in July. This success comes despite predictions Foursquare would be crushed by Facebook's recently launched location-sharing feature called Places. But Foursquare's recent user milestone suggests Places may actually be helping Foursquare's growth by popularizing the concept of checking-in and sharing your location. Foursquare's three-million-user milestone was first reported by TechCrunch which derived the number based on its own research. Foursquare has not made any formal announcement of its traffic.

The only thing that indicates that Foursquare will soon gain more users in the Philippines is that Filipino celebrities have begun noticing it.

Recently, Philippine TV celebrity @DaphneOP (Daphne Osena) tweeted "I don't know what's the point of foursquare. Why would you want everyone to know where you are?"

And I just had to respond with several tweets which eventually got a re-tweet from @DaphneOP.

For celebrities, the issue going against Foursquare -- apart from privacy concerns, leaving them open for stalking -- may be that their Foursquare check-ins may be construed as endorsements of the particular places they visited.

But for the average Joe and the small business owner, Foursquare can be a boon.

Just think of it as literally being put on the map and recommended by your own loyal customers.  In the US, establishments have even started giving incentives to Foursquare users who become Mayors of their Venue on Foursquare or who just simply "check in".

A few words about Globe Tattoo

It was a couple months ago when I bought a Globe Tattoo prepaid broadband modem along with a Smart Bro prepaid broadband modem in order to test out both wireless broadband services.

What attracted me to Globe Tattoo was supposedly its faster speeds both in uploading and downloading. The secondary consideration then was the cost of the actual unit (which is lower than that of Smart Bro) and the cost of per block of wireless internet time (which is the same as Smart Bro but is segmented into 15 minute blocks instead of 30 minute blocks).

I initially found Globe Tattoo, on the face of its packaging to be a good buy. But when I plugged it in at my house in Sampaloc Manila, the internet speeds I experienced were hardly any better than the dial up connection I get using PLDT Vibe. In fact, it was a bit worse as the signal often cut out -- which is almost a happy event because that would mean I actually got a signal at all.

As it happens, my location (from the looks of it) is not within the so-called wireless internet hotspot of Globe, ergo, the slow connection speeds.

As for Smart Bro, the connection speeds that I get from where I live are great. I tried it out in several other places and it worked quite well too. I tried Globe Tattoo in the Makati but still experienced slow speeds.

However, in recent weeks, my Smart Bro failed to log on to the wireless internet network and at times the load I put into the prepaid account magically vanished. This happens once in a while and I haven't really kept track of the dates (as well as locations and times of the service outages), but suffice it to say that generally (most of the time) Smart Bro provides good service.

I have since given away my Globe Tattoo and stuck with smart.