I will shamelessly admit I’m completely in love with Foursquare. As a matter of fact, most of the boys in our office are as well (I’ll let you know, but I’m pretty sure I have them all beat). I was absolutely thrilled to be able to catch Foursquare’s co-founder Dennis Crawley’s interview with Mashable’s Pete Cashmore at this year’s SXSW.

Here is the brief “where we are” (no pun intended) and “where we are going” info I learned from the interview.

Where we are

One of the main things Crawley highlighted was that they’re adding review data to Foursquare. They really want to “recycle” the data they’re getting from people and give that back in the form of recommendations. Basically, they want to use your check-in info and habits and couple that with things you’ll like and real recommendations from your friends.

By checking in and sharing on Foursquare, you’re now going to be able to have a more personalized experience with the application and with whatever venues you check into.

Where we’re going

Even more exciting, there will soon be an Explore tab and Archives. They’re hoping to make cities and neighborhoods easier to explore with little reminders of things you want to do.

For example, let’s say your friend is constantly reminding you of this amazing cup of coffee at this particular coffee shop, but he always forgets where it is when he’s out. You may be walking by that coffee shop without realizing it–whether this coffee shop is in your city or not–your smartphone will beep or give you a buzz, saying “Hey, your friend says to grab a sweet cup of coffee here.”

I had so many people give me recommendations for when I arrived in Austin. How great would it have been to explore that city based on killer recommendations from people who knew the city well?

Overall, Foursquare is striving to provide a richer experience at home and away, getting more and more personal with recommendations from trusted sources–your friends.

Today at SXSW Interactive 2011 started with the realization that my seven dollar gamble on a dual-charging iPhone cable did not pay off. My iPad and iPhone greeted me with barely-charged batteries as I awoke feeling much the same.

After a hurried drive back to Austin, I was able to get downtown and into a great session with Kevin Pollak, AOL, and some other folks called “Banking on Big Brands/Celebs for the Web.”

Brands, content, and journalism have been much-emphasized topics at the conference thus far. It’s a great time to be representing a company that specializes in developing great content for brands.

Click to enlarge

If you don’t believe brands are thinking about or needing digital journalism and content production, then the line outside the room for the “Brand Journalism: The Rise of Non-Fiction Advertising” session would have convinced you.

I was back to stop by the FreshBooks birthday party–complete with clowns–and had a stellar ice cream sandwich for lunch, washed down with a shiner bock.

On the agenda for this afternoon: a quick jump into the keynote after my phone chargers, and a stop by the Social Media Data Visualation panel.

The first wave of television commercials for Windows Phone 7 is in regular rotation, and features smartphone users with their fingers and eyes glued to their handsets. Windows Phone users look on incredulously, asking “Really?” every time they spy a competing device and its enraptured user.

Apparently this campaign is intended to imply that other smartphones are slow, plodding devices, with enslaved users who check out of their real lives in order to fiddle around with their phones.

Maybe I’m showing my bias here, or perhaps I’m just missing the point. The way I see it, iPhone users are stereotypically enamored of the coveted device due to its greatness. In my mind, the Windows Phone users asking “Really?” are in fact asking “Really, your phone can do that? It’s that good?” because Microsoft products are inferior and clunky.

And we all know how good Microsoft is at producing handheld devices. How’s that Kin holding up for you? And where can you buy a Zune, anyway?

In the commercials, you don’t actually see anyone using a Windows Phone, er, phone. You do, however, see men urinating and attractive,scantily-clad women–sort of like the average episode of the Benny Hill Show.

And as for the tagline “It’s time for a phone to save us from our phones,” that’s not cutting it for me either. So it’s an expensive device designed to make you not want to use it? Sounds like a Microsoft product.

So yes, I “really” like my iPhone. You can keep your buggy, bloated mobile crash device.

Image courtesy the Matchbook Museum

As the old saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same. The advent of smartphones has fostered the idea of putting brands in the customer’s pocket.

Or has it?

In my usual puttering around the recesses of the web looking for I-don’t-know-what, I ran across the Matchbook Museum–an online gallery of old promotional matchbooks. For those too young to remember the days when physicians endorsed cigarette brands and everybody smoked (or those who haven’t watched Mad Men), it was common for businesses to give out matchbooks imprinted with their logo and some sort of brand message.

In poking around the Matchbook Museum, I found a brand I recognized: Kroger, a supermarket chain located in the Midwest. Their entry in the canon of carcinogen-inhaling enablement can be found here, encouraging customers to “strike a friendship with Kroger” and promoting their “Top Value” coupon stamps.

The idea behind promotional matchbooks was simple: every time a customer went for a match, they were presented with a company’s logo and a brief marketing message. This constant branding exposure implanted that message in their subconscious, much the way billboards, print ads and other traditional media advertising would. Kroger’s message was more warm and fuzzy than most: “Strike a friendship.” In addition to the clever double-entendre (“Strike.” Matches. Get it?), they were more than just a place to buy groceries: they were your friend.

Fast-forward half a century to a time (right now) when even 10-year-olds on the subway have an iPhone, Blackberry or some other digital communication device glued to their hands. Companies are seeking newer and ever more inventive ways to establish personal relationships with consumers. We even use “friend” as a verb, thanks to social sites like MySpace and Facebook.

Nike has updated this model with their “True City” app, which provides hyper-local, real-time information (currently available in six European cities, presumably with American markets to come). The app essentially competes with services like Yelp with crowdsourced information and recommendations on bars, restaurants, music and more–and of course tries to sell Nike shoes and apparel.

The argument of whether or not users want recommendations from an athletic shoe company on the closest place to get the best martinis is almost irrelevant. What they’re attempting is to connect fans of their products by enabling them to share lifestyle tips with each other. Who better to recommend the best chicken wings in your neighborhood than people who like the same shoes you do?

Again, the idea here is simple: put your brand in a customer’s pocket. Just like a grocery store chain has almost nothing to do with smoking a cigarette or lighting the pilot on your stove, an athletic shoe company is hardly related to attending a DJ night at the local nightspot. But the notion that the company is your ally in making your lifestyle choices and altruistically wants to bring like-minded people together–complete with push notifications–is the real power play.

In short, the technology has changed, but the message is the same. Companies are putting their brand in people’s faces at every available opportunity, and we can look to the past for inspiration in building the future of marketing.

Related articles by Zemanta

• How Local Businesses Can Benefit From Mobile Social Networks (web-strategist.com)
• Why the mobile Web matters for marketing (smartblogs.com)