Foursquare gives the honorific of mayor to users who have checked into a venue the most. Often these loyal users are rewarded by the venue with discount or prize.
But today Foursquare downsized mayors by removing their ability to edit the venue. Until now, mayors were sort of like Wikipedia power users; they could edit details about the venue, correct typos, even change the phone number and map location.
According to Foursquare, “It just didn’t make sense anymore as our user base has scaled so quickly. However, we’re working on some tools to give superusers more responsibilities and will be doing a (long-awaited) superuser upgrade soon!”
Is this part of the continuing mainstreaming (lamestreaming) of Foursquare as it closes in on 5 million users and increasingly engages in partnerships with major brands?
If the comments on watchdog blog aboutfoursquare.com are any indication, this move is not being well received by longtime Foursquare fans, who point out that a lot of useful editing was being done by these mayors.
bpopper [at] observer.com | @benpopper
