Is Your Business on Foursquare Yet?

Foursquare certainly made their mark in 2010 as the leader in location-based social networking. In fact, the website saw a growth rate at over 3000% and rang in 382 million check-ins.

Once dismissed as an application holding little value for businesses, but its massive growth and popularity has resulted in check-ins from everywhere, even...from space. Yes, on October 22, 2010, a Foursquare user checked-in from the International Space Station.

60% of the 382 million check-ins took place within the United States. However, with the remaining 40% spread across multiple countries, Foursquare is becoming a global network. So what does this mean for businesses? There is potential here! Having a presence on Foursquare allows users to check-in, thereby letting their friends see where they are checked-in, and also for businesses to promote incentives through the program. For example, checking into a store in the mall can pull up a "Special Nearby," such as "Get 20% off by checking in and showing the cashier." Even checking in at restaurants can garner free appetizers or a glass of wine.

So, while some feel telling people what they are doing through Facebook or Twitter is enough, (multi) millions of users want to also show people where they are.

Here at Tandem, we are all check-in enthusiasts. If you have questions about getting your business on Foursquare, don't hesitate to ask us!

Attention Tandem Fans: Come See Joe in Dallas!

Tandem Interactive's own Joe Laratro will be heading out to Texas next week, this time to speak at the Dallas Fort Worth Search Engine Marketing Association's January 19th meeting. Joe will be speaking alongside Brett Tabke of Webmaster World.

They will be speaking to the meeting attendees on their specialty--Search Engine Marketing. Aside from Joe's work here at Tandem, he is an active speaker at industry conferences for the likes of Pubcon, Webmaster World, SMX and SES. Additionally, he teaches SEM curriculum for the DMA, SEO Class, Netowrk Solutions, Pubcon Master, and University of San Francisco.

The meeting will begin at 7pm, and will take place at the Richardson Rennaissance. You can register for the event here: http://dfwsem.memberlodge.org

Blekko Stays Strong at Tracking Spam

Blekko, a search engine that I previously posted on, has been holding strongly to their word about the excess of content farms and spam, and have been tracking the growth rate of spam with CEO Rick Skrenta's "Spam Clock" creation.

At the beginning of 2011, Blekko began tracking (via the Spam Clock) how many pages had been created that were essentially deemed spam. Today, the clock has ranked up over 250 million spam pages that have been created since January 1, 2011. The website also states that about 1 million spam pages are created every hour.

The problem with spam websites, for those who are unaware, are that they dilute search engine results and make it difficult for searchers to locate legitimate websites containing the information/products that they are looking for. In Blekko's words, they steal clicks and also increase click fraud. In essence, they are counterproductive to the whole scheme of search.

For more on the Spam Clock and the impact of spam on search engines, you can check out Search Engine Land's take on it all.