After crossing the half-century mark, most men go out and dye their hair or purchase a new sports car in an attempt to remain hip. President Obama sticks to social media.
The now 50-year-old commander-in-chief added to his tool chest of social networking sites on Monday by joining Foursquare (News - Alert), the highly popular location-based check-in service.
The launch of the new White House page on Foursquare coincides with start of the president’s three-day economic bus tour through the Midwest.
For obvious reasons, President Obama won’t be giving real-time updates of his exact whereabouts, but he will be taking advantage of the recently announced Tips List, a new Foursquare feature that lets users document their best advice about a specific location.
The administration will use the page to offer up tips on the places that Obama visits and some background information on what he did there. The service will also enable other users to “check-in” when they visit the White House or attend events that include the president, such as town hall meetings.
The White House account already has 13,000 followers and two “tips” – both short recaps of the president’s speeches in Minnesota and Iowa, where he talked to local residents about his strategy for creating jobs and turning around the economy.
More than 25 people checked in to the administration’s first stop at Lower Hannah’s Bend Park in Cannon Falls, MN.
With Foursquare under his belt, Obama is now a member of every major social media site, including Facebook (News - Alert), Twitter and LinkedIn.
For Foursquare, adding President Obama to its list of high-profile users is a testament to the startup’s aggressive growth pattern and its ever-increasing relevance.
“We’re obviously overjoyed,” Foursquare spokesman Jon Steinback told Politico. “It’s a little bit of a reflection of how far we’ve come already. Foursquare has been viewed as a new service, but the White House and the Obama administration using Foursquare as a vehicle is a reflection of how mainstream we’ve come.”
A number of other well-known political figures also use Foursquare, including New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.
At the end of last year, Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley (News - Alert) said that the company was adding around 25,000 new users every day.
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Beecher Tuttle is a TMCnet contributor. He has extensive experience writing and editing for print publications and online news websites. He has specialized in a variety of industries, including health care technology, politics and education. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Jennifer Russell
