"FourSquare" news and stories

Even burgers are getting on Twitter these days.

With the debut next month of Manhattan's "healthy fast food" joint 4Food, diners will be able to combine their love of burgers with their love of social networking, the New York Times reported.

Customers order the doughnut-shaped burgers -- and get to name them -- that are then broadcast on the Internet on Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare.

Burger orders are shown on a leaderboard that advertises which is most popular. Every time someone orders the burger you created, you get a 25-cent credit to the restaurant, the Times reported. If your burger is popular enough, eventually you'll eat for free.

And turning it into a game could make customers promote 4Food online as they try to nudge their won creations higher on the list.

The mayor of Pizza Hut in Kearney, Nebraska, gets a free order of bread sticks with the purchase of a large pizza, while at the Robust Wine Bar in Webster Groves, Missouri, anyone can get a free bottle of beer in August just for checking in.

Have no idea what we're talking about? Then you're not on Foursquare, but chances are increasingly likely that some of your favorite restaurants are.

Not long ago (really, not long -- like, say, last year), you were on the cutting edge if you followed your best-loved eateries on Facebook or sent a gushing Tweet as you scarfed down a particularly delicious serving of pad Thai.

Not anymore.

Now there's a new GPS-based generation of social networking sites like Foursquare, which allows users to "check in" at their favorite local haunts using the Foursquare smart phone app. Then they can earn "badges" for things like logging in three times a week, and even get the chance to become "mayor" of, say, their neighborhood Pinkberry for checking in there more than anyone else within 60 days.

Time was, restaurateurs kept their eyes out for the local food critics, the ones who could make or break their reputation with a few well-chosen words in the next day's newspaper.

Today, restaurateurs still have critic anxiety. The difference is, everyone's a critic -- and the criticism is taking place online, reports the Boston Globe. Sites like Yelp and Chowhound have democratized the world of criticism, with lay foodies striking fear into the hearts of restaurant owners. After all, a few quick keystrokes at the computer or on the smartphone can create lasting damage if the writer shares a negative experience.

Just as social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare have shown an explosion in usage over the past few years, so have review sites -- enough so that they're becoming a force in restaurant culture, reports the San Francisco Business Times. Six-year-old Yelp, for example, has grown by more than a third in just a year, and now has more than 10 million reviews in its database -- meaning nary a restaurant can escape its reaches any longer.

TechNewsWorld reports that McDonald's is one of the early partners in Facebook's location-based feature that's in development.

What's a "location-based feature"? Facebook is essentially mirroring popular social-network platforms such as Foursquare and Gowalla, which allow you to share your current location via Geo-tagging (a GPS-like function). The idea behind Foursquare is rather simple: when you're out and about, you can "check in" at each location you go to, letting your social networks know where you are and what you're doing there. But you don't just walk into a spot and automatically update yourself-- one has to physically run the Foursquare program to "check in."

Facebook is hoping to catch this recent wave of "I'm right here, right now" through their status updates -- and McDonald's would use your location to create an advertisement for a McRib (or whatever), in an attempt to divert your body into the nearest Golden Arches location.