I recently read a rant from one Kiwi blogger who hates location-based app Foursquare.  Fair enough . . . one man’s fish is another man’s digital diatribe, after all.

The writer’s biggest gripe was the annoying number of updates they had to endure when friends used platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to broadcast their check-ins.

But that’s like blaming Jim Hickey for wet weather . . .  don’t shoot the messenger.

Foursquare users need to physically opt in to have their movements broadcast in this way (unlike the furtive Facebook fraternity who force us to opt out of everything). So if your mates have gone down the path of annoying and pointless updates just give them a heads up about how you feel. Better still, unfriend them.

And these are probably the same annoying mates who would use Facebook’s Foursquare rival, Places, to check you in somewhere without your permission or knowledge – yet another indication that when it comes to Facebook you have to fight for your privacy at every turn. 

Foursquare has just passed seven million users, up from five million users in December. And it took only 37 days to go from six million to seven million according to b2cmarketinginsider.com. That puts Foursquare on target to break through 10 million users by early May.

Earlier this month it added five new language platforms - Spanish, French, German, Italian and Japanese - which is only going to speed up its phenomenal growth.

I have no idea whether Foursquare has a sustainable business model.  And I don’t really understand why I’m somewhat addicted to it (for a while I led the Capital’s leaderboard for points earned from check-ins).  But for the moment it’s a cool tool, and apt app that takes social networking off your PC screen and out into the real world via your smartphone.

And sometimes it takes you places that might surprise you.  After firing up my phone after a weekend flight from Christchurch to Wellington, Foursquare placed me at Pleiku Airport in Vietnam!  Of course I checked in – even if I didn’t broadcast the fact to my mates via Facebook and Twitter.