Todd Lyden

I was at a local eatery today and noticed for the first time in a while: a comment card! Seriously. I can't remember the last time I saw one, but it struck me. As I was looking at it, I had already broken out my phone and was checking in via Yelp and Foursquare. The comment card was standard pap. Rate the service, food, cleanliness. Then it committed a cardinal sin, it asked for an ADDRESS? It was a postcard, which I supposed makes sense for most restaurants, but why NOT use the internet to your advantage? I suppose I could have taken the card and actually mailed (what are the odds?). Three problems with them. 1. Nothing for me 2. Could take forever, if at all. 3. Cost

Thanks to Jessica Rodriquez over at Bubbalon!   @jessrod354  sent me some Bubbalon stickers! Here is the cute letter she handwrote! Bubbalon's integration with FourSquare got a good work up by Da Man, Damond Nollan here . I've been toying with it slowly but surely. It might help if it WASN'T just an iPhone app right now, but I digress. Here's the group of each of the five Bubbalon stickers. Now I just need to find places for them. I'm not sure there is much in my life that is ATROCIOUS :( but I'll see what I can do. If you are interested in getting some, hit Jess up on Twitter at jessrod354 or at @bubbalon - I'd bet she would LOVE to send you some. PS- Apparently Jess writes EVERYthing for Bubbalon, but if you love Etsy, so does she- see here! Related articles Bubbalon: Fun Ratings, Reviews and Sentiment Sharing (louisgray.com) Join the Land of Bubbalonians: Say What You Want, When You Want (downtheavenue.com)

An interesting battle in the war of geo-location services or location-based services. Last week, Chipotle Mexican Grill started offering a Facebook Places Deal. The backlash was immediate and not pleasant from  Foursquare . Their CEO publicly admonished Chipotle on Twitter to setup a  Foursquare  promo deal. It's hard not see why Chipotle went with Facebook first. They have over 1 million fans on Facebook alone!The deal was apparently simple: show the local restaurant that you checked in and you got a BOGO deal. Not bad! This was a BAD move for  Foursquare . It makes them look petty. While Chipotle is taking the high ground and simply saying they can offer a 4Square deal in the future. I actually Tweeted to asked and was told "lots" took advantage of the deal. Looking at Chipotle's Facebook page for the event, there were some glitches obviously. In the end, this is unlikely to bring in a BUNCH of new customers, but instead of doing a PAID service or ema...

The death of   Foursquare ? Heard this one yet?  I wrote  asking about scary encounters,  specifically this one , almost a month ago. Recently, with  Facebook  coming out hard with their Places and more specifically Deals, people are heralding the death of 4sq. I see two problems with the notion in the short term and two in the long term. Short term?  Most people using FB are plopped at a laptop or desktop, not wandering the countryside which is the POINT of  LBS  (location-based sevices) or geo-locational deals. They are the customers.  The apps and gizmos are REALLY geared for the locations to make use of. Most of your friends don't care if you checked into a restaurant, but that restaurant will- once they realize they have a decent tracking mechanism.  (And yes, I know that its a small percentage of locations/venues that are plugged into the locational stuff, but that is a growing market.) Foursq...

Ari Herzog has gotten some great response on his blog about why he is dropping foursquare . Head over there now to read why- scary tale,  click through to discover why - definitely worth it. The whole scary notion of folks digitally stalking  you  using your own online life is frightening, but not new. We tend to put too much up thanks to Facebook and others assuming that no one has nefarious ideas about using our information. I am sporadically on  foursquare  and can see some uses for it on the business end.  I personally think that just deleting an account might be overkill or at least in reaction to the story seems overkill.  I tend to put things up that people are going to know anyway and frighteningly enough too much of our personal information is public knowledge anyway.  Geolocation, we are being told, is the wave of the future, but I can see some backlash just like this coming down the pike. Why do  you  use it or not?