If you are an avid user of Foursquare, you’ve probably found yourself in this situation: you go to a location over and over and over in an attempt to become the mayor, but to no avail. Perhaps you even gave up and stopped going there, but maybe you were just one or two check-ins away from dethroning the incumbent. Now you’ll never make this fatal location-based mistake ever again because Foursquare now lets you count down the check-ins to a mayorship as you duke it out for king-of-the-hill status.
Foursquare mayorships are given to the user with the most check-ins at a specific location within the last 60 days. If you are within 10 check-ins of the current mayor, the confirmation screen will include a count of how many check-ins remain until you are victorious. If you visit a venue’s page on Foursquare.com you can also now see how many check-ins the current mayor has.
Foursquare also made some tweaks that help keep employees and managers at venues from hogging the mayorship. If a user claims a venue as a manager they can no longer be that location’s mayor. That seems fair, doesn’t it?
This small tweak is a win-win for Foursquare and its users. Being alerted to one’s proximity to the exalted title of mayor is going to light a fire under most users, and make them itch to check-in again. This, in turn, is good for the businesses, which, of course, is good for Foursquare. It’s a small feature but it could have a significant impact on check-in activity. The only thing it lacks is a warning system for current mayors when someone is hot on their tail.
