Beyond the Badge & Missing the Boat: Foursquare’s new Media Deals

This Mobile Behavior article reports that Foursquare has partnered with media companies like HBO and Warner Bros. to…well…engage fans, er, something.

While I’m fascinated with Foursquare and the opportunities it allows for location-based mobile marketing, this move doesn’t make any sense to me at all.

Apparently, the new media partnerships allows companies like HBO to ‘connect’ or interact with movies and TV shows in a variety of ways, including by “living vicariously through the characters and emulating their lifestyles,” according to the article.

While I’ve been waiting for products, especially internationally recognized brands, to figure out how to market their products through Foursquare, I will say this recent partnership both surprises and confuses me.

Foursquare is supposed to be all about getting consumers to get out and frequent location-based businesses…not be obsessed with and try to emulate fake characters from TV shows or movies (with usually bad writing, I might add).

Part of me understands where this new partnership might take consumers and businesses alike. But for the most part, I vote “unlike’ on this one.