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Users get around with Foursquare [The Beaumont Enterprise, Texas](Beaumont Enterprise (TX) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) July 10--Technically, Herman Davis and Jess Benton were strangers. That's until the day Davis' iPhone alerted him that Benton was nearby at Best Buy. Davis, who had been friends with Benton on Twitter but had never met her in person, wandered through Best Buy until he saw a familiar face. Well, sort of. "As I was walking through the store, I did recognize her face from her Twitter picture," said Davis, a 37-year-old small business owner. He walked up to Benton and said hello. "I looked at him and I was like, 'You're my Twitter and Foursquare friend,''' said Benton, a 32-year-old blogger living in Beaumont. And in that moment, Davis and Benton went from Internet friends to the real deal, thanks to Foursquare. Foursquare is just one of many location-based services that take advantage of mobile web and global positioning software to create social interactions based on a users's location. What exactly does that mean? Well, let's break it down: Let's say you've created a Foursquare account and added your local friends. Once you set up your phone, you head out to grab a drink. Foursquare has easy-to-use applications for the iPhone, BlackBerry, Palm and Android phones. People who don't use smart phones can check in to locations with a text message. While checking in at your favorite watering hole, the application will tell you who else has recently checked in to that venue. It also will alert you if your friends are nearby. Hey, look at that! Your cousin checked into a nearby bar. You head over there to meet up with him before deciding to grab a bite to eat. You arrive at Chili's Grill & Bar, where Foursquare alerts you that just by checking in, you get free chips and salsa if you show your check-in screen to the server. Now you're really rolling. Wondering where to go next for a drink, you open your Foursquare app to see what bars are nearby. A tip left by another Foursquare user tells you that one of them makes killer Bloody Marys. Another tip for the venue alerts you to that night's karaoke contest. The decision is made and the night continues, now with insider info on the establishments you patronize. Be a mayor, get a bonus Two weeks later, after checking in to your neighborhood Starbucks, you receive a message telling you that you've become the "mayor" of that venue. This means that in the past two months, you've checked in to that venue more than anyone else. When you approach the counter and order your drink, by showing the barista your check-in screen, you're immediately offered a $1 discount on a Frappucino blended coffee drink. But best keep up on your check-ins, because at any time, your mayorship could be stolen from you by other loyal patrons. Carrabba's Italian Grill in Beaumont takes advantage of Foursquare's potential as a marketing tool. A box announcing "Special nearby" will pop up on the screens of Foursquare users when they check in to a location near the Italian restaurant on Interstate 10. Carrabba's offers a free dessert to the mayor of the restaurant. Andrew Parker, a manager there, said the local restaurant's Foursquare policy was handed down from the corporate office. However, the Beaumont location has not seen much response from the community. "We just haven't had a whole lot of feedback from the guests yet," Parker said. Parker said he thinks the tool could give the restaurant an edge over other eateries, say if a diner is one or two visits away from claiming the mayorship at Carrabba's. "I'd love to get it off the ground floor. It kind of creates a little competition around the community," Parker said. Foursquare numbers up These are among the benefits of using location-based services like Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt and Brightkite. Each service offers similar GPS-based services, but Foursquare has pulled ahead of the pack in recent months. When Foursquare was created in 2009, it was only available in major U.S. cities. But as it grew in popular-ity, its creators opened it up to anyone, allowing folks in smaller cities like Beaumont to build their Foursquare network from scratch. Venues can be added by owners or by those visiting for the first time, which means just about anyplace can become a Foursquare venue. And that, local users say, is exactly what they've had to do. "I think I was probably one of the first users out here, to be honest," said Davis, who began using the service in the summer of 2009. "When I first started using it, for about a month I was the mayor of every place I went." Butinthepastfewmonths, as more people in the area have joined Foursquare, the competition has gotten stiffer. "A lot of my mayorships are getting stolen left and right," said Davis, a 33-yearold mail clerk at the Jefferson County Jail. And locals aren't the only ones joining: The service is just shy of 2 million users worldwide and sees more than 10 check-ins each second. It is estimated that more than 100,000 new users join Foursquare each week. On July 3, the service celebrated its first million check-in day. And with social networking sites Twitter and Facebook rolling out new location features, soon the question, "Where are you?" will become obsolete as more and more people volunteer their positions for all their Internet friends to see. Shannon Fleming and her husband, Kevin, were born and raised in Orange. But in January, sick of the hurricane evacuations and the mosquitoes, the pair packed up and headed to Las Vegas, hoping for a little luck. They found it. Shannon and her husband started Super Star 24 Hour Tanning, a round-the-clock tanning salon that Fleming said has proven popular in the socalled city of sin. After opening the salon in April, Fleming and her husband spent $3,500 on radio advertising. From that ad, she saw eight new clients in three months. But after an employee added their business to Foursquare, a free service, Fleming said she sometimes sees up to three new customers a week. "A lot of the stuff you do for free actually pays off more than the things you pay for, I'm noticing," she said, adding that she's seen about 100 new clients from Yelp, a usergenerated review website. "Nowadays, the Internet is like gold," she said. Fleming said she and her husband plan to open a 24hour tanning salon in Southeast Texas by the end of December 2011. Friendly competition Davis introduced his wife, Temeka, to Foursquare a few months ago. Turns out, he created his own worst enemy. "We'll drive to a place, and we'll both try to check in before each other," he said with a laugh. "That's why I don't like to drive because when I drive, I can't check in fast enough." Herman is mayor of 20 places. Temeka, more than 50. "He didn't have any competition, so I kind of took over his market," she said. "I hold the titles to everything he goes to." Social networking and potential discounts aside, this is one of the things users say they love most about Foursquare: friendly competition. Friday afternoon, Temeka and Herman argued about who was the king of Beaumont, as decided by Foursquare. But this is one argument Herman won't win. Not today, anyway. "The numbers don't lie," Temeka said. To see more of The Beaumont Enterprise, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.www.beaumontenterprise.com/. Copyright (c) 2010, The Beaumont Enterprise, Texas Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. 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