How to unlock the Gym Rat badge – Foursquare

gym-rat-foursquare

gym-rat-foursquare

To become a Gym Rat in Foursquare you have to actually go to a Gym. Now when you actually earn the badge you get the following message from Foursquare

“10x trips in 30 days? Go reward yourself to the nastiest double cheeseburger you can find (bonus points for cheesy fries and milkshakes). And ps: you look nice today!”

So that is what it takes, 10 trips to the Gym in 30 days, but how does Foursquare know you went to the Gym, or how does Foursquare know that the location you are checking into is a Gym? well someone gotta tell it, and that can be you or someone else. To tell Foursquare that the location is a Gym, log in to foursquare and tag the location. The tags are important to unlocking different badges and the Gym tag is the only way for you to unlock this badge

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How to unlock the Super Mayor Badge – Foursquare

Super-Mayor-Foursquare

Super-Mayor-Foursquare

The Super Mayor Badge requires a few check ins and some time to earn, but is not a hard badge to unlock.

For you to be a super mayor you have to hold down the mayor ship of 10 concurrent locations, and once you do that badge is yours.

You cant not earn this badge in short order it will take you at least 50 check ins before you are in a position to earn it, unless of course you check in a very unique locations where you are uncontested for the mayor ship. I am not sure what happens to this badge if you lose some mayorships, is it stripped?

Just for fun, here are the locations I am mayors of

+ Barrhaven Vietnamese Restaurant (Ottawa, Canada)
+ C A Paradis (Ottawa, Ontario)
+ Esso
+ Fallowfield Village
+ haiku asian bistro and sushi bar
+ KFC
+ MacEWEN
+ mamaronic police station
+ McDonalds
+ ottawa roastery
+ Philip Killeen Hospitality Centre
+ Phillip Van Leeuwen
+ Saslove’s Meat Market (ottawa, ontario)
+ stronger you martial arts

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Foursquare Mayor – An extremley meaningfull title, but not for the mayor!

I have been writing posts on how to unlock foursquare badges for the past week or so. My intention for collecting these badges was actually part of trying to figure out what on earth is the point of Foursquare in the first place. One of my goals was to unlock the Super Mayor badge, which I have done, and for which I will write a “how to” post.

To be a mayor on Foursquare means that you have gone and checked in at a location at least 2 times, and that you have the most check ins at that location. If someone else checks in to the same location, you will be in a mayor-ship fight until one of you two gives up. I have had the honor or holding many mayor-ships, and even stole one this week (Venue 358342 a.k.a Barrhaven Vietnamese Restaurant). I have gotton a few chuckles from people when I became mayor of some locations, proud to say, I hold down two gas stations, a McDonalds, a meat shop, and a police station.

I had a very annoying professor in college who always said the following statement after every comment made in class , it was annoying at the time, but she had a good point. Her statement was “so what and who cares?”, which is exactly the point of this post, I am the mayor of a meat shop, “so what, and who cares?”

Well I certainly don’t care, I get no benefit out being mayor of a McDonalds. My friends who see my foursquare tweets don’t care if I am mayor a police station, they may chuckle, but should they care?

The people who should care however and care a LOT are the owners of places where people check-in. My friends know, that I complain about many meals I buy from restaurants, and so if I am a mayor of a restaurants, that means I like it enough to go back, and if I am telling my friends that I am back, that means free word of mouth advertising, and that is money. Here is the problem, I asked the manager of the Barrhaven Vietnamese Restaurant if I will get a discount because I am the mayor of their store on Foursquare. I could have been from a different planet because she had no clue what I was talking about. Hence the Foursquare dilemma

The people who should absolutely care about Foursquare, often have no clue of its existence, the rest of us are just passers by.

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How to unlock the super user badge – Foursquare

Ok, so you managed to get a few badges after a few Foursquare checkin’s For sure you unlocked the newbie badge. Maybe you unlocked a few other badges as well.

Superuser-badge-foursquare

Superuser badge foursquare

The name of super badge suggests that you among the Elite of Foursquare users (can someone call them foursquarers?) The name however is very deceiving this badge can be yours fairly quickly. You don’t need to earn many badges, actually you only need one badge other than the newbie. The one badge that maybe required is the Local badge. Here is why.

The way you earn this badge is by performing 30 checkins in a month. Technically speaking you can just check in to one location every day, that could be your own home if you so choose, and that badge is yours. If you do that you are guaranteed to have earned the local badge, most likely have become the mayor of that location.

This badge can also be earned fairly quickly in my case it was a couple of days, as I was on the road and checking in frequently. Its more fun to earn this badge along with others and its way easier to earn than the name may lead you to think

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How to unlock the local badge – Foursquare

local-badge-foursquare
Local Badge Foursquare

The local badge is given to those who are addicted to a certain place or…. to those people who check in at work. You can in theory earn this badge as your second badge if you only check into one location.

With that being said, the local badge is given to you if you check in to the same place 3 times in one week. If you earn the local badge, I will be willing to bet that you are also the mayor of the location or in a bitter fight with a co-worker over the mayor ship of your work place. If you do not earn this badge by checking in at work, congrats, not only may you be the mayor of the location, but if the location turns out to be a gym, you could very well be on your way to earning the Gym Rat badge.

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How to unlock the bender badge – Foursquare

Bender, what an odd name. The bender badge on foursquare is actually a fairly easy badge to earn and be earned quickly and very likely before you would have earned your explorer badge.

bender-badge-foursquare

Bender badge foursquare

so what does it take to earn such a badge? A little commitment and some time outside the house, that is all. For you to earn the bender badge, all you have to do is check in 4 nights in a row and this badge is yours. Now I cant claim to know when exactly Foursquare starts counting night time hours, so you are on your own there but for me all check in happened after 6:00 pm.

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How to unlock the Superstar badge – Foursquare

The Superstar badge is really your 4th badge after the newbie, adventurer, and explorer badges. Having said that, it is extremely unlikely that this will be your 4th earned badge. Odds are you would have earned a few other badges along the way before you hit this one. It is however required for you to have earned your explorer badge before you get this one

Superstar-badge-foursquare

Superstar badge foursquare

Its not hard to earn this badge, all you really need to do is check in to 50 unique locations, and this badge is yours.

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How to unlock the Explorer Badge – Foursquare

The Explorer badge is really your third badge after the newbie and adventurer badge.

explorer-badge-foursquare

Explorer badge foursquare

The explorer badge is fairly simple to earn actually, it is earned the same way you earn the previous two badges, you just need to check in to more places. 25 places to be exact. Its that simple, once you check in to 25 different locations you earn the explorer badge

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How to unlock the Overshare Badge on Foursquare

Overshare has nothing to do with your location and things you are doing at that location and  that is a good thing I guess… The Overshare badge is possible to earn on your first day of using Foursquare and can be earned along with the Newbie, Adventurer, and Crunked badges.

Overshare-badge-foursquare

Overshare badge foursquare

To earn the Overshare badge, all you have to do, is actually earn your Adventurer badge very quickly, so get in a car, on a train, on a bike and get going. The Overshare badge is given when you check into more than 10 locations in less than 12 hours. So as you can see if you start using Foursquare, on day one and start checking in at night and visiting many places you can unlock 4 badges in one day including the overshare badge, and that is exactly what happened to me.

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How to unlock the Crunked Badge Foursquare

It is actually possible to earn this badge on the first day of you using Foursquare. Which was the case for me. I earned it along with my Newbie Badge, Adventurer Badge, and the Overshare badge.

Crunked-Badge-Foursquare

Crunked Badge Foursquare

How exactly do you get Crunked? Its very simple actually, you just have to be out and about for one night. You are officially Crunked on Foursquare if you check in at 4 locations in one night. Now I do not know when Foursquare starts or ends the “night” but for me the 4 stops happened after 8:00 PM and before midnight

So if you are bar hopping or just out for the night, check in at 4 locations and you get Crunked

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