Slides from Guerrilla Foursquare paper given by J. Andrew Dufton and Stuart Eve at Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology, April 2012.

1. Guerilla Foursquare: A digital archaeological
appropriation of commercial location-based social
networking.
Andrew Dufton @jadufton (Brown University)
Stuart Eve @stueve (UCL, L – P : Archaeology)

2. Digital Archaeology?
● Archaeological data
● Digital capture or
dissemination
● Academic, professional
and public audiences
● Research and discovery
● Mobile technologies!

3. Museum of London – Streetmuseum
● Museum of London,
History Channel, Brothers
& Sisters Creative Ltd.
● £48K development cost
● 50K+ iphone downloads
within 2 weeks of release
● c. 2.5K Android
downloads (May 2011)

4. Museum of London – Streetmuseum Londinium
● Roman London only
● Archaeological finds
● Roman city plans
● Additional media

5. Introducing Foursquare
● 15+ million users
● Location-based social
networking
“Keep up with friends.
Discover what's nearby.
Save money. Unlock
rewards”

6. Foursquare warfare?
● 2900+ GLHER entries
● 48 selected sites
● 4hr walking tour
● 200-character tips
● 9600 total characters
● 120+ 'points' for
@jadufton #winning

7. Results – site categories
● 48 sites
● 7 broad categories
● Existing 4sq sites
● New 4sq locations

8. Results – total check-ins
● 2200+ total check-ins
● 35+ checkins/day
● Obvious conclusion 1:
Foursquare <> historical!

9. Results – check-in ratio
●
%sites / %checkins
● Obvious conclusion 2:
> traffic = > checkins

10. Results – Tips ● History Channel (MoL):
192 done tips
● London 2012 (MoL):
38 done tips
● TimeOut (MoL):
7 done tips
● BBC World Service (Fleet
Street): 4 done tips
● Guerrilla Foursquare
(total): 2 done tips
● Obvious conclusion 3:
more clicks = bad

11. Results – Lists
● History Channel: 300K+
followers
● Guerrilla Foursquare: 3
followers
● Higher tip placement
● Pop-up exploration
notices
● Obvious conclusion 4:
Affiliation adds legitimacy

12. Foursquare of the future?
● Value-added services
● Crowdsourcing
● Data re-use
● Platform reappropriation
● Discovery-based learning
● Gamification