If President Obama ousts someone as the mayor of a venue on Foursquare, is he still called the mayor? Just as the president kicks off his tour of the rural Midwest, the White House has checked into Foursquare, creating a profile on the site, the administration announced in a Monday blog post.
By Tuesday afternoon, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave's new profile already had more than 14,000 followers on the location-based site. You can follow the White House to get official tips from the president and his staff as they visit locations throughout the globe. There are already two tips posted the White House page; one for the Seed Saver's Exchange in Decorah, Iowa and another for Lower Hannah's Bend Park in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, the first two stops on the president's tour.
"President Obama discussed ways to grow the economy and strengthen the middle class with a crowd of 500 people at Hannah's Bend Park on the first stop of his economic bus tour across the Midwest," the first tip reads, with a photo included.
If you follow the White House on Foursquare, you can also check in to official events, town halls, speeches, and more. The White House already has a presence on social media, with both a Twitter profile and a Facebook page and Twitter account. In the wake of announcing his 2012 re-election bid, President Obama recently started tweeting more often on his official Twitter feed as well. Tweets from the president himself are signed "BO."
In other Foursquare news, the site on Monday debuted a new feature called Lists, which lets you make crowd-sourced lists of places to explore, like the Best Coffee Shops in Brooklyn or Austin's Most Delicious Tacos.
Also this week, Foursquare updated its iPhone app to allow users to add photos to their check-ins. The service rolled out for Foursquare.com several weeks ago, and the company said the response was "amazing."
Foursquare also promised an updated look and feel for the entire app. "There's a new design scheme and a cleaned-up header, and, as has been frequently requested, bigger tap targets," the company said in a blog post. "This means instead of trying to tap the tiny comment bubble on your friend's check-in, you can now just tap on the check-in itself. It's much much easier, especially when you've got your coffee in one hand and your phone in the other. Multitaskers rejoice!"