I checked in today at lunch in my favourite falafel place in London and realised that it would be very cool if Foursquare (or Facebook Places, or any other similar service for what it matters) could use the data coming from retailers POS systems.

So if you went to Starbucks and pay with your card you could have an automatic check in there. Cool uh?

In a way it would be Foursquare meeting Blippy in the physical world.

Although technology shouldn’t be an issue (I’m sure that it’s possible to get data from a POS system via an internet connection), I see it quite difficult from a business point of view, because on top of making agreements with merchants there would be the need to make agreements with card processing companies too. However, just for the sake of argument, it would be pretty cool for early adopters and tech savvy people and even better for merchants interested in new marketing opportunities. Essentially it would add a social layer / game dynamics to loyalty programmes.

Also, it would increase significantly the value of being the mayor of a place, since it would be undoubtedly linked to an actual purchase and a real presence at that place. No more cheating though.

Clearly this added option would be only available through partner merchants, however I believe it would be a great business opportunity for Foursquare or whatever other company should do it.

That being said, in all this there’s a possible major flaw (at least one I should say), which is the fact that checking in becomes more checking out really, since the action would be postponed towards the very end of the presence in a place. This would kill the idea that I can check where my friends are now. However, I’m not sure how much Foursquare is really about that beyond what they say they are, so maybe it’s not such a huge problem. In case finding your friends when you’re out and about is not actually that important in their roadmap / business model, than I’d seriously consider shifting their service more towards something tangibly rewarding for the user and more appealing from a business perspective.