Even the biggest websites around aren’t exempt from web-hosting troubles. Nearly 100 well-known websites were unavailable for most of last Thursday because of problems with Amazon’s web hosting service.

Amongst the sites taken offline by the fault include geosocial website Foursquare,   user-generated news site Reddit and questions and answers website Quora.

In a statement on its website, Foursquare wrote: “Our usually amazing data centre hosts, Amazon EC2, are having a few hiccups this morning, which affected us and a bunch of other services that use them. Everything looks to be getting back to normal now.”

Those sites, along with dozens of others, use Amazon’s web hosting service Amazon EC2 to support their sites. Amazon EC2 provides processing power and storage to organisations without their own data centres.

Amazon EC2 said in a statement on its website: “We continue to see progress in recovering volumes, and have heard many additional customers confirm that they’re recovering. Our current estimate is that the majority of volumes will be recovered over the next five to six hours.

“As we mentioned in our last post, a smaller number of volumes will require a more time-consuming process to recover, and we anticipate that those will take longer to recover.”

No reason so far has been given for the problems.

Some weeks ago we wrote a blog entitled Foursquare Explained. As a follow up to that basic, introductory piece on the geo-location platform, I decided to write a more personal account of my experience of using it for the better part of a year now. [These views are my own and don't necessarily reflect the views of my colleagues at NSDesign...]

When I started, I only had one other friend on Foursquare, my friend Derek, and neither of us had really embraced it quite yet.

Gradually though, over the past year, things have changed. More and more friends and colleagues have begun to “check-in” places too. It seems as though I’m averaging about a friend a day requesting to connect on Foursquare.

At first when I joined, it seemed like it would be like Twitter and you’d want to get lots of friends (you can even go through your various address books and social media platforms to find who’s using it and add them), but as more and more people began to use it and “check in” places, I found my inbox would be inundated by people, literally all over the globe, pinging me their locations.

No disrespect to say, my American friends and colleagues, but I have little or no interest in knowing they logged into such-and-such bar, deli, restaurant, gym, supermarket or school.

Nor, I suspect would they care, that I’ve logged in  here at NSDesign,…yet again. (I am Mayor here, incidentally, see pic below).

So lately I’ve been mulling over some of my gripes which I thought I’d pass on to you, a possible Foursquare user or future user. Honestly the aim is not to “gripe”, but rather to help you avoid alienating your friends and colleagues should you begin checking in everywhere you go…

1) MANAGE YOUR ACCOUNT WELL

From the onset, log onto the website foursquare.com - click on “me” (or your name in the top right near your photo) and then choose “friends” from the top/middle navigation (or down the right hand side of the screen, where you’ll see your “friends” listed).

Select “see all” and then, when you get that page up,  you’ll find it has “Manage Your Friends” at the top. Choose the middle tab “Friends”. I currently have just twenty-two foursquare friends (which is more than enough!)…

On the right hand side – opposite each friend – there is a box which can be selected or de-selected. Un-tick the box if you DO NOT wish your check-ins (“pings”) to be broadcast to these people.

Again, I suggest you’re choosy with who sees your updates. . .

2) PING YOUR GOOD PALS ONLY

As I say, I highly suggest you ONLY ping to your real friends…especially those near you. For example, if someone is in Edinburgh and you’re in Glasgow – do you really need to notify each other of your many check ins through the day? Probably not, unless it’s a close friend or colleague or otherwise really relevant.

Of my more-than-twenty foursquare.com friends – only about five or six get my actual “pings” when I check in.

3) DON’T TWEET YOUR EVERY STEP

This is a gem. I have a few friends (who shall remain nameless, bless them) who log in as they’re passing a store, at a train/bus/tube station or going over a bridge. Really?  Did I (or anyone) really need to know that? Not unless we’re meeting there!

My simple advice is only send to Twitter any place you’re going to be for a while – a seminar, restaurant, cinema etc.

Sometimes I do actually log in from my local tube station, but usually remember to not ping/tweet the info and check in “off the grid” – again because no one would really benefit from such knowledge.

4) TO BROADCAST OR NOT TO BROADCAST?

When it comes to checking in places, once again, I’d suggest you consider your options for relevancy. If in doubt, select “off the grid”.

Remember that you don’t always have to “ping” or “tweet”. Sometimes  I will do one or the other, sometimes both and sometimes neither – again always depending on the venue I’m checking in at. Do I want people to know I am at my doctors for a check up? Filling up at the local petrol station? At the fruit and veg store? Probably not? Who cares?

5) AVOID SOCIAL MEDIA SPAMMING

I suspect if you’re anything like me, many of your Foursquare friends are already on your Twitter list, are Facebook friends or connected on LinkedIn – so, in essence some of your check ins may be double-check-ins or even triple check-ins and thus bordering on SPAM.

Now I will be honest with you, I admit I only learned these things after  pretty much breaking all the above rules. Am sure I alienated one or two folks, but now am much more conscious of my check ins.

SUMMARY:

At first Foursquare can be a really fun thing – you check in, you get your badges and become mayor sometimes too – what fun!

You can see where your pals are (or where they last checked in), but quickly, in just a matter of months, it has amounted to clogging up my inbox and my Twitter feeds with a lot of pointless guff. I figure if all my pals check-ins are annoying me, then my “check ins” may be annoying others.

So the moral of this story is relevancy. Do you need to know where I am? Do I need to know where you are? If in doubt, again, use the check in “off the grid” option and let’s leave it at that.

A couple of week’s back we looked at the potential benefits that participating in GPS app Foursquare could bring to your business. This week we’re going to explore one of those areas in more detail – how Foursquare can essentially work to traverse from social media to an online version of a loyalty scheme, attracting and keeping customers, with minimal expenditure or time or money.

An initial account with Foursquare costs nothing to set up, but allows you full interaction with your customers through the platform, including the opportunity to offer incentives and discounts to potential and existing clients. One of the best facilities Foursquare offers businesses is inclusion in a list of nearby venues given to users when they log in from any given location.

This directly advertises your business to potential customers who are geographically disposed to visit your establishment, and with an attached incentive, could easily give you the edge over another local destination.

There’s also the possibility of having a Mayor – this is the person who checks into your store most often and is rewarded for doing so. This creates a competitive edge to Foursquare – a decent reward for your Mayor will ensure that customers vie for the privilege. They bring more business to your store, you get to reward customer loyalty, and the whole promotion is pretty much advertised for free. Perfect.

At first glance Foursquare can seem like just another social application designed to keep us all in constant contact, but in providing the chance for SME’s to offer appealing discounts to a highly relevant customer base at low rates, it may yet prove to be the strongest tool in a web marketing armoury.

A few weeks back we looked at the rise of Foursquare, and how this can potentially help your business. This week it’s the turn of Facebook’s home-grown equivalent, Facebook Places. The two programmes have a similar aim; they both allow you to check-in when you reach various locations, ensuring you never miss an opportunity to connect with those nearby.

Where they differ is that Foursquare has a competitive element, through its Mayor programme, whereas Facebook Places focuses on what Facebook does best – disseminating your published information to connect you with those around you.

Like Foursquare, Facebook Places offers the option of ‘claiming’ your place and advertising your business through the system; although your business has to be added by a user first. Consequently, it doesn’t appear to offer quite the same business advertising opportunities as Foursquare; but it is arguably better for personal contacts, with the might of Facebook behind it. Check-ins are automatically uploaded to your status feed, and Places has a wealth of functionality integrating it with Facebook, including the ability to share place recommendations and tag people.

Of course, as with all Facebook apps, there are some privacy issues to be aware of – your default Places setting will automatically publish your location in updates and include your name on a real-time list of Who’s Where. If you are using it as a social media tool, then this is probably what you want – high visibility. If it isn’t, then you’ll need to adjust your default setting.

Facebook Places is essentially another way to connect with your clients and associates. Still in its infancy, it won’t currently drive business by itself but could form an important part of an integrated social media campaign.

Foursquare is one of a breed of new social networking programmes known as ‘geosocial networking’. As the name suggests, these programmes work based on user locations, whereby you can ‘check in’ at venues, earning badges and automatically updating any relevant social networking sites, such as Twitter and Facebook.

It’s a fun and engaging way to interact with friends and clients, with the emphasis on exploration and communication. As well as allowing you to interact geographically, Foursquare also allows comments and statuses to be posted on their service, encouraging community development.

If you run a local business, Foursquare can be an excellent social media tool, as the focus is on a geographical community in the real world, as well as an online community. Members of Foursquare frequently swap recommendations of venues, shops and meeting places and as there are rewards for unlocking venues and badges, businesses that are registered as venues receive a certain amount of free advertising just by having a profile on the site.

There is then the further option to attract mobile customers by offering special ‘Foursquare’ deals. Available to anyone who ‘checks in’ at your venue, these deals range from discounts to freebies for those crowned Mayor (the most frequent visitor across 60 days) of a venue.

As the site combines interactive travel guide with social networking, Foursquare also attracts comments and reviews on their various venues, creating a collection of personal recommendations that will encourage other users to attend.

If you’re looking to enhance your local profile in the wider world, then Foursquare could be the social media tool for you, opening up a world of opportunities that focus on your location.