Yesterday I saw an article that announced FourSquare has played a part in boosting the sales for the pizza chain, Dominos. Only launched a couple of months ago, Domino’s have been offering free pizzas and discounts when users check into its stores.

So what makes FourSquare so appealing? Why do people like to update their off line location online? Is it an emotional drive or are we getting on board in an effort to find the latest deals and coupons in a bid to save the pennies?

Bitsybot looked at the way people interact with information. Their analysis tells us that when it comes to FourSquare seventeen people check in every second and as you can see from the graph below,  the most popular areas are food and shopping.  As expected, nightlife peaks over the weekend but users are more likely to check in to a restaurant than a club – which makes you question the attitude of ‘FourSquare is only appealing to teenagers who drink too much’.

The information on shopping is interesting, it shows that check-ins are concentrated between the hours of 11am and 9pm in the week with the largest check-ins on a Saturday. Although most retailers are probably well aware of the shopping habits of their customers, it does strengthen the need to look at the integration of offline and online marketing, is this a new way to attract footfall into their store? What further data will be available as FourSquare users increase?

It’s great to see that brands are embracing emerging technologies but do you think there is a future in location based apps? Will it stand up against services such as Yelp and the imminent Facebook location feature?