Honestly, 2010 was just insane. The numbers tell the story better than we can, so we put together this little infographic. (Also, our 6,000,000th user signed up last week!)

Click on the graphic to view full size.

UPDATE: Check out a larger version of the map here.

If you didn't check out Foursquare in 2010, then here's your push to go to http://www.Foursquare.com, check out their site, download the mobile app, and go checkin somewhere. Nobody checked in in North Korea last year so there's your opp for fame...or just check in like everyone else at work and local restaurants and favorite digs about town. Check in enough times at enough different locations, get enough mayorships, collect enough badges, and Foursquare will start to like you enough to move you up to super user status -- then you'll have super powers to create new locations beyond your geo location check in dreams. :) Please remember, however, that that only checkins in the last 60 days count towards mayorship, and that only one checkin a day counts towards mayorship. If you need a first friend on Foursquare try me http://foursquare.com/brentpurves (Superuser - yes. Cape - no).

Gowalla 3.0: All-In-One Check Ins Are Here

By Allie Townsend on December 2, 2010

Yes, you can now check in to your Foursquare account with your Gowalla App.

Will I stop opening both my Foursquare AND Gowalla Apps on my iPhone now when I want to check in somewhere and just use Gowalla's nicer-looking new interface instead? Or will I be lured back to Foursquare? Or will I simply gravitate towards only using my Facebook app and just check in there where I have a larger base of relationships? Maybe once Facebook Deals arrive in Canada and if Facebook can give me the option of also checking in to Foursquare and Gowalla then I'll let Facebook have a chance at being my one geo location app that rules them all. Until then I'll continue to open the Gowalla app and be tempted to try to remember what my foursquare email/password is so I can skip opening Foursquare all together.

As a social media marketer I love to see competition growing amongst the social networks and to see an increasing number of people learning about location based games and checkins and deals. What's your favorite location based application? Have you claimed your business in Foursquare and Facebook? Need help figuring out how to use social media marketing to promote yourself or your business? Contact me today for a free 30 minute phone consultation at http://stirsolutions.com/consultation

Geomium offers four main sections and information can be viewed on a map or as a feed: People (all friends near your current location), Places (all the nearby bars and restaurants), Events (all nearby plays, festivals, concerts and parties, which can be filtered by type and date) and Deals (all the local deal, discounts and offers from nearby bars and restaurants).

So, for example, you might spot that their is an event in your locality that your friends are already at or attending. Afterward you want to find somewhere to eat/drink and see that there is a special offer at one particular establishment. That’s the idea anyway.

Geomium is a new location based social network application launching in UK now, then Europe, then USA later. Canada? Maybe to follow.

Does it feel too late to be coming on the scene with another "check in" application? Almost. Pretty hard to follow Facebook Places given their huge userbase. The unique Yelp, Qype, Eventful dataset and the People, Events and Deals integration features of Geomium had better be amazing and extremely easy to use if it's to expect to carve out any market share before its competitors such as Facebook Places, Foursquare and Gowalla copy geomium's unique features. It's a (decreasingly) big world, so maybe there's a little piece of the pie left to grab in Europe? More competition is a good thing.

How can anyone commit to one location-based platform during these wild-west days of social network geolocation shootouts on main street. There goes a tumblr tumbleweed going rolling by. Is your iPhone/Android smartphone's main screen filled at least getting full of all of the different location-based apps like mine? Just wait til your boss gets a whitelabel location based app for your company (E.G DoubleDutch), and then the local grocery store gets one, then the local mall. Soon with location-based apps auto-sensing where you're at (if you let them) there won't be a place too small or too remote that you can't check in to.

Location-based services, such as Foursquare and Gowalla, are proving quite popular with consumers open to sharing their locations with the world. They’re also built to be inherently business-friendly, as most allow retailers to incentivize checkins and social sharing behaviors in the hopes of attracting swarms of patrons to their businesses.

As the space continues to evolve, new platforms, technologies and services are emerging with the specific intention of helping small businesses reward their loyal patrons with deals for their in-store behaviors.

Summary of location-based social media marketing services available for businesses looking to take advantage of mobile location-based marketing, checkins, barcode scanning & group buying:

1. Verified Checkin Rewards - SCVNGR 

2. Social Barcodes - Bakodo.com iPhone app can scan most barcodes. Stickybits.com and Shopkick.com integrate social experience w/ barcode scanning

3. Group Deals - Groupon.com LivingSocial.com , OpenTable, Yelp.com , Zagat.com all offer group deal services to businesses. GroupTabs.com
combines group buying with checkins.

4. Challenge-Based Rewards - SCVNGR, Foursquare, Gowalla offer challenge based rewards allowing businesses to decide what rewards to offer and reward criteria.

5. OPt-in Deals - Bizzy.com is a go-between for businesses and local consumers -- it allows businesses to upload deals and consumers to create a list of businesses they want to hear from.

Most of the attention paid to Facebook Places, the new location feature that the social network launched on Thursday, has focused either on the privacy implications of the service or on the impact it could have on location-based startups such as Foursquare (which some have said they expect to be "crushed" by the new feature). Facebook's real focus with this launch, however, isn't individual users or even Foursquare: Instead, it sees Places as a way into the local business and local advertising markets, and the company with the target painted on its back is Yelp.

Google Places, Facebook Places, Foursquare Location Layers & Mayors. Having trouble keeping up? Will Yelp have to partner with Gowalla or another smaller check-in startup to stay ahead of the million-business-pages-strong Facebook checkin tsunami? What is your business doing to get listed in all of the social network places? Why should you even consider spending your valuable time or marketing dollars on something like this Facebook Places or Yelp or Foursquare advertising or promotion? Drop me a note at brent[at]stirgroup.com and I'd be happy to answer your questions or setp a time for a free phone consultation to discuss your business and whether getting on the Facebook / Yelp / Foursquare / Gowalla check-in marketing train is right for your business, products or services.

Social-networking giant Facebook has entered the check-in world.

Facebook executives on Wednesday announced the launch of Facebook Places, which -- similar to services such as Foursquare and Gowalla -- will allow people to use the GPS on their mobile phones to let friends know exactly where they are.

Facebook Places is available immediately in the United States through the latest version of Facebook's iPhone app and, for other advanced mobile phones, through the company's site for advanced mobile devices, executives announced at Facebook's headquarters in Palo Alto, California.

Hello superuser!

We've seen that you've either been checking-in a lot (woo!) or adding lots of new venues (thx!) which is why you've been upgraded to "Superuser" status!

There are 3 different levels of Superuser status, each giving you a little more control over things on the site. As you contribute more to the site, you'll unlock more Superuser power.

You're currently at level 1: You can edit venue info (address, cross streets, Twitter names), mark places as "closed", and let us know about duplicate venues.

You'll see these tools when you visit a venue page. For example, to edit venues look for the little pencil icon: .

So that's it for now - thanks in advance for any fixin'-up you may do!

If you're wondering why you can't edit locations or do other stuff some of your other friends on Foursquare can, it's likely you need to spend more time using Foursquare adding new locations and checking in to earn the right to be called a super user!

At least according to the folks at custom badge site Osnapz, who have created a Foursquare brand leaderboard stack ranking the location based service’s many promiscuous partnerships in terms of follower count, with Zagat in the top slot at 48,136.

For the uninitiated, the leaderboard is a glimpse into some of the more obscure Foursquare brand tie-ins and badges,

What badge do you hold that you're most proud of? Do you even notice or care about your badges? Did foursquare make up the word crunked?

Foursquare where art thou?

The sign of a successful online service is when spammers get on board. We’ve seen this most prominently in recent times with Twitter, where spam is now part of everyday life. Could Foursquare be next to succumb to an avalanche of spam?

Foursquare spam is still a minor problem but it’s definitely something to keep an eye on. As a service with a fast-growing but relatively small userbase, true spam on Foursquare is difficult to find. However, it is there if you look hard enough.

One person’s innovative marketing strategy is another person’s spam