With Twitter cementing itself directly behind Facebook in the social media stakes, Underscore asks what’s next for social networking?

With social networking becoming an integral part of people’s lives the demand for users to ‘never be apart from their friends or celebrities’ is at an all time high. Smartphones have provided the perfect way to meet this demand with 3g internet and GPS as standard and so we at Underscore believe next in line to the twitter and facebook dominance is going to be “geo-social networking”, and you need look no further than foursquare as the next big thing.

Foursquare delivers the usability (stalkability) of twitter with the friendship connecting (stalking) of facebook in a nice package predominantly for the smartphone user (unlucky Nokia 3210 users). Foursquare works by allowing you to ‘check in’ at your location which allows your friends to see where you are, you can also tell them exactly what’s going on at your location.. just incase you’re friends didnt feel close enough to you! Throw into the mix reward badges and the chance to become mayor of places such as starbucks and topshop and you’ve got yourself a winner!

In December 2009 foursquare had around 150,000 users, fast forward to March and that figure was over 500,000.. if it continues at this rate you should jolly well expect to be hearing the phrase ‘check in’ a lot more by the end of the year.