They released a statement saying that they’ve only just discovered it due to “increased security analysis”. You can read it here, if you wish: http://www.crypticstudios.com/securitynotice

Let me save you the jump, and give you the very first paragraph:

At Cryptic Studios, your privacy and security is important. As part of our ongoing efforts to monitor and enhance security, we recently detected evidence of an unauthorized access to one of our user databases. The unauthorized access occurred in December 2010, and evidence of this has just been uncovered due to increased security analysis.

I’ve emphasised the bit in bold, fair reader, because it is, pardon my French, a big leaky bucket of shite.

Evidence of this was uncovered by Cryptic’s customers back in February 2011, and Cryptic were informed about it. I know this because I was one of those vigilant customers who wrote a concerned email.

Here’s what happened. I received some spam to a unique address that had only been used to register for Star Trek Online beta access. I mentioned this on Twitter, and a chap called Bryan got in touch saying the same thing had happened to him, he had emailed Atari (owners of Cryptic), and he copied me in on the next email to them to which I replied expressing my concerns.

Atari, having dismissed Bryan’s situation as random spam and generated phishing, never bothered getting back to us. I’ve included a screen grab of the mail chain below, with Bryan’s surname name and email address removed for his privacy. Start from the bottom and work your way up.

So here we are, A YEAR AND 4 MONTHS later, and Atari have issued a Mea Culpa. Let this be a warning to any business who holds customer details on a network.

Your customers aren’t just your payday – when we raise concerns over the security of our information, and present you with something tangible, you bloody well check it out no matter how secure you think your “precautions” are!

It is just beer I’m avoiding, not other drinks. Basically it’s an effort to discover new things and broaden my horizons, and shift a bit of belly in the process.

That last bit isn’t really working, but I’m blaming that on the pizzas.

The first bit is though, and the end of March was the end of month 3; I’m 25% there.

Since the end of January, which was my last update, I’ve developed a taste…no, more like a tolerance, for cider. It still smells like cat piss, but if you can get past that then Bulmers is ok. Magners pear cider is alright, it doesn’t really taste of anything, to be honest, and the new Cidré from Stella Artois is quite nice, if a little heavy.

The jewel in the February-through-March crown had to be Thistly Cross Gold, Oak Cask Cider. I bought a bottle on my first visit to Illegal Jack’s. It was surprisingly nice. Very woody and smoky, but quite thick and a little cloying after about half a bottle. Didn’t stop me polishing off 3 of them though.

That same night I was chatting to Alaster Phillips and Stewart Kirkpatrick about whisky, digital journalism and video games…and my twelve month abstainance from beer.

I explained how I saw out 2011 with an Innis & Gunn, haven’t touched a beer since, and I was open to suggestions as to which beer I’ll have to welcome in 2013. I’m still open to suggestions, folks.

Stewart suggested that as my first beer in a year it should be something Scottish, as it’ll be consumed on Hogmanay, and something a bit special to celebrate going whole year. Perhaps something from the lads at Brewdog. I liked that idea.

Then Alaster suggested that I should get Brewdog to I craft a whole new beer for me to see in the New Year. Now, I liked that idea even more.

So if you’re out there, @BrewdogJames…what d’ya say? Shall we talk?

Paid content is the non-free electronic commerce of digital content and information goods in digital media.

In other words, it’s when a website charges you to read its articles or watch its videos.

It’s a controversial topic in media circles; some think it’s the future and the saviour of journalism in a digital age, and others think it’s a waste of time because people are too used to getting a free ride online and are reluctant to pay. What do I think?

Since you ask, I’m on the side of the the former.

I don’t think it’s a saviour by any stretch of the imagination, but I do think it’s the cornerstone of a workable business model for online media publishers. As the millenial generation grows more savvy, on-site ads just aren’t as effective for media outlets as they were before – they don’t sufficiently subsidise the free model that many newspaper and magazine websites are based on.

But you’ll have noticed the title of this post wasn’t Paid Content but rather Paid Community, which I’m coming to now. It was a train of thought about paid content that led me to the notion of a paid community.

But what is a Paid Community, exactly? As it happens the mighty Wiki doesn’t have an entry for it, and sticking it in Google returns stuff about compulsory paid community service, so you’re getting the Kev-ipedia definition of this one:

A Paid Community is a group of like-minded individuals who pay for exclusive access to the resources of a central organisation and the collective’s time, knowledge and shared resources.

I’ve made it sound a bit wanky there – basically it’s a club. Or the Borg. No, definitely a club.

So why am I going on about this stuff? Glad you asked. What if the media is trying to monetize the wrong part? What if you could give your content away but charge people to be a part of the community around it.

This way you might be able to get around people’s attitude of “why should I pay to read it here when I can read it for free over there?”

Well, over there they have a free for all comment board where mentioning that you have an iPad gets you spammed by bots and flamed by Android fanboys**, and their forum has to shut down every other month to clear out the World of Warcraft gold farmer posts. Whereas over here we have an engaged community with a passion for the subjects we cover, and a depth of knowledge and opinions of their own that will enhance your experience beyond simply reading an article.

Take a look at the websites of newspapers, magazines, and to some extent the BBC – look at the comments. When you cut through the trolls and the spam what you’ve got there is good old-fashioned conversation. Take a look at forums too; I’ve been a member of forums about all kinds of stuff from sci-fi to digital art – again, you cut out the crap and it comes down to useful, insightful and fun conversation.

Conversations help people to learn and solve problems. Conversations are the lifeblood of community. But what makes conversation in a paid community any more valuable to the user than conversation in a free one?

Well first, you’re only going to get interested, relevant parties joining. Spammers aren’t going to want to pay only to be permanently blocked after their first infraction, and trolls will learn the hard expensive way. The people you’re going to be in the community with are quite literally invested in it.

Second, if the implementation is right it can enhance your social media engagement, and if you have a blog or some other website it could help boost your traffic and maybe even your search engine rankings a bit.

Think about it. Once you join the community you then hook up with the other members across the social landscape on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+. You create relevant content that they are (presumably) interested in so they comment, they “like”, they tweet, they +1.

Your content suddenly has a greater and more relevant reach, and the social activity helps your SEO a little bit too.

Third, every club has its members perks. If the club has a bit of clout in relevant circles it can negotiate discounts, offers, even freebies for its members.

We’re all a part, or have been a part, of paid communities offline for years; karate clubs, boy scouts/girls brigades as children. As adults we join gyms, sports clubs, golf clubs, Malt Whisky Societies and we derive value from them for our investment.

If we take that attitude online then someone with a better head for business than I could really make it work, for themselves and for their communities.

Days after all these thoughts occurred – literally, about two days – Chris Pirillo announced a paid community around LockerGnome. It’s called Gnomies.

I’ve been a LockerGnome reader for a long time, and I enjoy Chris’s YouTube cast, TLDR, on a daily basis. For a couple of weeks I thought over everything I’ve outlined here, and watched Gnomies develop from day to day.

Finally I put my money down and signed up. It actually feels good to give a little back after all I’ve gotten out of LockerGnome. But more than that, I just need to see if I’m right.

Would you pay to be a part of a niche community? Let me know in the comments.

**I’m neither iOS nor Android inclined. I have and love both for different reasons, that was just an example. Jump back up…

One. Whole. Year.

Now, as I’ve gradually informed my friends about this over the last few weeks the reaction has gone from “ooft! A whole year?” to a more derisory howl of laughter coupled with “no chance!” That last lot clearly don’t know me as well as they think they do.

Anyway, I’m now a month in and no beer has passed my lips. It wasn’t as hard as I thought, but it hasn’t been a cake walk either.

I’ve been out a few times, the lads drinking Stella and me on Morgan’s & Coke or brandy (pub brandy is not so nice, I’ve discovered), and every time the smell of the beer has been a killer!

Work is currently stressing me out something chronic and, again, the temptation of a beer on Beer Friday (they buy us beers every Friday) to wind down is huge. I’m resisting though, and I just head home instead of hanging around. Another work related temptation was some outreach work I’ve been doing for a client that involved me contacting – wait for it, you’ll like this – BEER BLOGGERS!

Imagine you’d just turned vegetarian and then you were forced to make bacon rolls for hours every day. It’s a bit like that.

One good thing that happened this month, though, was a wee trip to the Scotch Malt Whisky Society with Alaster Phillips and Andrew Burnett.

Andrew is a member and signed us in, and we spent a good 3 or 4 hours gabbing away and sampling the malts. First up was a Glen Scotia, number 93.49, I think. It was good, too. Really smoky, which I like, and sort of meaty. Next we went for 93.50, another Glen Scotia. It wasn’t as smoky but was a bit cheesy, like cheese Quavers. It was also a little fishy. Alaster said it was a seaweed smell, like the smell of a beach just as the tide has gone out, but I reckon it was stronger than that, and sweeter; more like prawn cocktail.

The third one, Invergordon, wasn’t quite as nice, but was pleasant enough all the same. It was rougher than the first two, and I’d have had no problem knocking it back if I had to – the others I’d rather have savoured. There was also a rum, whose name I have forgotten, which was about 80% proof. It drew all the moisture out my mouth, but tasted lovely – sort of like chocolate and licorice with just a hint of strong coffee.

I don’t drink whisky enough to justify the membership fee to SMWS, but for folk like Andrew and Al who buy it a lot to both drink and invest in, it’s a sound investment.

So now, we’re 3 days in to month 2 and it’s another Beer Friday at work:

What with my beer embargo I’m currently enjoying a #deskcider. Well, I say “enjoying”, it still tastes like cat pee, I just want the alcohol

— Kevin Gilmartin (@KevinGilmartin) February 3, 2012

We’ll see what February brings and I’ll keep you informed.

I was running late this morning, my alarm having failed to wake me up, and when I got to Airdrie train station I had just moments to hop on to the train before it pulled away. I hadn’t renewed my monthly ticket yet but that was fine as I had my Maestro card and would just buy a return from the on-train ticket inspector. Or so I thought.

The inspector came round, I asked for a return from Airdrie to Waverley (now £16.50 peak, by the way!!) and got out my Maestro card.

The inspector’s ticket machine declined it immediately. “Odd,” I thought, “there’s definitely money in that account.” So I tried again – declined. The on-train ticket inspector, who is a lovely woman, I’ve seen her on that service a lot but I don’t know her name, said “Not to worry, these machines do that sometimes, just get one from the ticket office at the other end.” I was fine with that – I’m not a ticket dodger, I’ll pay my exorbitantly high fare like everyone else on the train.

50 minutes later I got off the train at Waverley. I think it was platform 8, can’t be sure – regardless, there was no ticket office, no ticket machine, and no barriers, just several Scotrail employees with ticket machines just like the one the conductor on the train had.

I wandered up to the nearest one, the aforementioned Dennis Scotrail, explained the situation – running late, just made the train, card didn’t work, conductor said to get it at Waverley – assuming that I’d be told where to find the ticket office. Instead, I was told “well, it’s your responsibility to have either a valid ticket or cash before travel”.

I took “cash” to mean “valid method of payment” and couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing, so I replied “I have a Maestro card mate, it’s a perfectly valid method of payment. People buy tickets with cards on the train all the time.” Dennis Scotrail’s reply? “We’re not obligated to accept every type of card. The Scotrail Passenger Charter sets out your responsibilities as a passenger, and you need to either have a valid ticket or cash before travel.” It seems Dennis Scotrail actually meant cold, hard cash.

Oh, before I go on, fair reader, I checked the Scotrail Passenger Charter – it outlines nothing of the sort. The terms “valid ticket”, “Maestro”, “cash”, or “method of payment” don’t appear at all, actually. But I digress.

Anyway, at this point I was starting to get angry. I was already late for work through my own fault, and this guy was holding me back even more.

Exasperated, but still quite controlled, I told him I didn’t need a lecture on the Scotrail Passenger Charter, I just wanted to buy a ticket so that I could get on with the rest of my journey to work as I still had a 15 minute bus ride ahead of me and I was already late. “Well,” says Dennis Scotrail,“I’ll escort you to the ticket machine this time, but the Scotrail Passenger Charter…”

Not best pleased at being escorted like some fare dodging wee YouTube walloper, I cut him off, “Look, I really don’t want to hear about the Scotrail Passenger Charter. I’ve been travelling by train for nearly 20 years, can we please just go so I can buy a ticket?” Again, he starts on about the ruddy Scotrail Passenger Charter, “I’m just trying to educate you as to where you went wrong, the Scotrail Passenger Charter says you need cash or a valid ticket before boarding the train. You can’t just breeze on to a train without either and expect us to accept your card.”

Educate me as to where I went wrong? That was it. I think I ruddy well can breeze onto a train and quite reasonably expect the country’s largest train operator to accept a Maestro card, thanks all the same Dennis Scotrail.

The rest of the conversation is something of a blur, but as you might have gathered, this guy was winding me up something fierce. During this time he said something that I took be an accusation of fare-dodging intent. I took out my monthly ticket, showed him the expired December one, and the stack of expired monthlies going all the back to June, and explained that I hadn’t had a chance to renew it yet.

I also decided I was reporting the guy.

“What’s your name?” I asked him, as we FINALLY headed up the stairs. He flashed a name badge that I couldn’t see because he wasn’t moving his high-vis jacket enough. “I can’t see that.” I said. So he told me his name was Dennis.

“Surname?” I asked. “You don’t need to know that,” he said. Ok, I’ll accept that without issue. When I worked in customer service I refused to give out my surname as well. “Ok, do you have an employee number then?” I asked Dennis Scotrail. He mumbled something at this point, and shook his head, so I’m assuming the answer was no.

“Right, so how many ‘Dennises’ work for Scotrail then?” I asked, fully intent on making a complaint about him and not wishing some other poor, innocent, non-douchey Dennis Scotrail to get in bother instead. His answer – keeping in mind the size of Scotrail as an organisation – was “I’m the only one as far as I know.” Right now, reader, you’re thinking, “hmmm, yeah, right…” I know this because that was my exact thought too.

We got to the ticket machine, I purchased my ticket using the Maestro card that started the whole debacle and…. IT WORKED JUST FINE! Of course it did. I knew it would – there’s hee haw wrong with it and there’s money in the account!

So, ticket in hand, I turn to Dennis Scotrail and ask him where the customer service office is. He, yet again, escorted me there.

Outside the office Dennis Scotrail produced a mobile phone, called his manager, and explained “I have a customer who wants to make a complaint, he’s disgruntled about having been escorted to a ticket machine.”

This didn’t wind me up, reader mine, it PISSED. ME. OFF.

I wasn’t just disgruntled at “having been escorted to a ticket machine” at all. I was disgruntled at “having been lectured about the Scotrail Passenger Charter after specifically saying I didn’t want to hear it and having been made to look like a fare dodger in front of other commuters by being escorted to a ticket machine after the on-train conductor had told me without any fuss just to get my ticket at Waverley“. Aaand breathe…

The manager – whose name I have now forgotten, but his initials were JD, couldn’t see me face-to-face as we was conducting an interview. He did, however, take a few minutes to speak to me, apologise and assure me that he would have a word with Dennis Scotrail after his shift. I have to wonder if he did.

I would just like to say that much as I may complain about Scotrail’s service, I have never before had even the smallest problem with any individual member of staff. But others have. Dennis Scotrail is a prime example of the kind of rude member of Scotrail staff that my old university colleague Rachael blogged about, just yesterday.

Oh, by the way, JD was also good enough to explain what happened with the Maestro card. Turns out that those little card machines the conductors have aren’t online – they can’t authorise a transaction immediately. In this age of 3G, Wi-Fi, and HSDPA I don’t think it’s unreasonable to find that fact surprising.

According to JD there are a small minority of Maestro cards that need immediate online authorisation of a transaction in order to be accepted, and the green Maestro cards from Clydesdale Bank would seem fall into that group. This is a rather more believable explanation than Dennis Scotrail’s clearly improvised one, which was “different software.” Yeah, I know…

So I asked JD, “so, are you saying that someone with a card that has no money in the account, or even someone with a stolen card, could use it to buy a ticket and it would work. But my genuine card with money in the account will be declined?” JD says this is indeed the case, but it’s more the bank’s fault than Scotrail’s.

Now, when all’s said and done, I think that’s actually a rather comforting little security feature of my debit card. More the bank’s fault is it? Allow me to retort:

The portable units used by Scotrail staff are just PDAs plugged into a card printer. PDAs are capable of at least a Wi-Fi connection, if not also a mobile connection. Stick a SIM card in there, Scotrail.

What? They’re wi-fi only? Ok, well how about enabling tethering on those Blackberry smartphones all your train staff seem to carry?

Not up for that either, eh? How about you wi-fi enable your trains and bring them chugging and screeching into the 21st century? Most of the train services south of the border have had wi-fi since 2004, why don’t you add it to your services now, and not wait until 2014 when your franchise is up for renewal and you’re a full decade behind the rest of the UK?

Expense and logistics, you say? No excuse, Scotrail. You can afford it. Your fares are exorbitant, and if you didn’t have a near-monopoly in Scotland there’s no way they would be as high as they are. As for logistics, I refer you to my previous comment about services south of the border; if they can do it then so can you. And if you want to verify that I suggest you check section 10.8 of the Rail 2014 Public Consultation report from Transport Scotland, it’s right here: http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/strategy-and-research/publications-and-consultations/j203179-12.htm

Basically, Scotrail, aside from causing conflict between passengers and the Dennis Scotrails of your company, what your utter lack of technological savvy is causing is discrimination against a group of your customers whose banks actually take customer security seriously. You can accept some Maestro cards but not others? Not good enough – sort it out, or don’t accept Maestro cards on-train at all.

UPDATE: I knew there was another part that I’d forgotten to mention, and it’s just come back to me now.

When I’d finished speaking to JD, I handed Dennis Scotrail his phone back, snippily thanked him for its use and turned to leave. He said something about how he was just trying to stick up for his organisation. His organisation wasn’t the problem, the on-train inspector had already spoken for her organisation when she said to get the ticket at Waverley. He was the problem.

By this point I was 20 minutes later for work than I would have been otherwise, so I said, “look, I don’t want to hear it; your manager has apologised for your behaviour and he explained the issue with the card. Thank you for your time.” And as I turned to leave Dennis Scotrail said “I think that’s self-evident, you need a card that works.”

I was enraged. I turned back, glared at him and said, “it does work, you just saw it work in the BLOODY TICKET MACHINE!”

Maybe he was purposefully trying to wind me up now, because what he said next was just ridiculous. “I was just trying to help you. The next step was to take your name and address, which I didn’t do and the next again step was to call the police, which I didn’t do.” Can you believe that? He was doing me a favour by not calling the police. Now to me that sounds like he was once again accusing me of intending to dodge my fare.

I have to wonder, if it had been Dennis Scotrail on the train instead of the nice reasonable lady, would he have kicked me off the train? Forced me to get a ticket at the next manned station and wait for the next service? Called in The Big Man?

With staff like that representing them is it any wonder that the scotfail.co.uk site exists?

I’m not giving up booze entirely. Goodness no, I’m not INSANE. Just beer.

This won’t be as easy for me as you might think.

There’s nothing I enjoy more than going out to the pub with my mate Cha and playing some pool in Airdrie’s West End Bar, losing a few quid on the Imperial Bar’s quiz machine (we sometimes win), knocking back some Stella and gabbing about Warhammer 40k books or where we are in Oblivion (laterally Skyrim). Yeah…we’re a couple of big kids and proud – 32 years old and still playing games.

Similarly, once the kids are in bed I love sitting with a nice cold Innis & Gunn and watching Frasier or Star Trek repeats. It’s a simple pleasure, I guess.

So the challenge is to go from January 1st to December 31st 2012 without a beer. It’ll be Morgan’s & diet coke, brandy, whiskey or even just a soft drink for me.

But I guess I should explain why, eh? Well it’s a mix of reasons. Primarily, I want to shift some weight next year and I’m one of those guys who gets beer-gut. Beer makes me a Fatty McFatterson. While I had that kidney stone I could hardly move for 3 months, and I put on over a stone in weight. It’s still on me, and its lease is up.

Secondly, I think I should discover more of what the world of alcohol has to offer.

My friend Alaster took a rare moment out from making mum jokes the other night and made a comment about me broadening my horizons because I had a brandy and a liqueur one evening. Both of which I’d had before – no conscious horizon broadening was intended – but it got me thinking that maybe I should. So I am.

Third, and finally, I just want to see if I can do it. Not in an “I want to make sure I’m not an alcoholic” kind of way, I wouldn’t presume to offend alcoholics like that. I just want to see if I can beat the challenge.

The temptation to have a Stella with the boys will be huge. Frasier without I&G will be weird, although it seems appropriate to develop a taste for sherry for that. I have a few 30th birthdays to attend in 2012, so that might be tough. It WILL be tough. I’ve always been a beer drinker, since I was sixt… eighteen (honest, officer). I’m looking forward to the challenge.

Okay. Tonight I’m going to see out 2011 with a couple of Innis & Gunns; my last for a whole year. As of 9am on January 1st I’m aff the beer. Cheers!

TweetDeck, beloved of power-tweeters the world over, has been unceremoniously nerfed by Twitter. It used to be slick, with just about every function performed without leaving the client. No more, dear friends, no more…

I mean, we use TweetDeck because the web interface isn’t suitable for our needs, right? Twitter have taken TweetDeck and just turned it into a desktop version of the website, with some columns. It’s as if they’ve assumed that people who used TweetDeck only did so for the multi-account support and the columns, because those are the only features left over. Did it not occur to Twitter that it wasn’t just what the client did, but also the way in which it did it that attracted people to the software?

I bet Iain Dodsworth is looking at the changes this morning going “WTF have you done to my program?!?!”

Honestly, it’s so bad I’m now on the hunt for a new desktop Twitter client. Have a look at my post and see what I mean. The best advice I can give you is DO NOT UPGRADE to the new client – you WILL regret it.

New TweetDeck – first impressions – by Kevin on Nerd Insider

What do you think about the new TweetDeck? Can you recommend an alternative desktop client for me? Let me know.

Let me just say to all you folk on Twitter and Facebook who are bemoaning the latter’s latest set of changes to the newsfeed, “Bored now!”

If that’s my opinion, you can bet Facebook got there three updates ago.

Oh, you go ahead and re-share that image to voice your displeasure…on Facebook. You’ve done your part for the cause there, and no mistake! The Facebook decision makers will see all of those duplicate images, see the solidarity of the disgruntled user and…

…do sweet Ffff-anny Adams about it. Just like they did when you all HATED the Newsfeed, and when you all HATED the adverts, and when you all HATED the changes to FB Group pages.

Can you imagine Facebook without those things now? No, because you keep using the service and Facebook leaves the changes in place, you get used to it, and eventually you forget why you hated it.

Facebook isn’t a consumer product. It’s an ad-supported service, free at the point of use and as such they care about the advertising dollar, not Joe User’s.

You can reshare that image, complain to your friends and “like” the plethora of New Facebook Sucks pages all you want – you’re still using the service and creating ad impressions for Zuckerberg’s bean counters.

This is just speculation on my part, but I’m willing to bet that Facebook usage actually increases during the period when people are whining about changes, because they do it ON FACEBOOK while going about all their usual business of commenting and posting updates.

Want to send a message to Facebook? Close your account.

You don’t have to delete it, just put it to sleep. Then go sign up to Google+ and send Zuckerberg a message (he has an account) telling him why you’re there.

Nothing will grab Facebook’s attention like a sudden massive spike in inactive accounts. Why? Because it’ll go hand-in-hand with a drop in ad views and click-through rates.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not gonna put the Big Blue out of business, but it might grab their attention long enough to make the user heard.

Facebook aren’t stupid, they “get” social. Hell, they pretty much “are” social. They can see your complaints, and they don’t give a damn.

Mark Zuckerberg is the Borg Queen and you, reader mine, are a drone. But are you going to be Designation 462894 of 750M, or break away from the collective and be a sexy Seven of Nine?

Do it. I double dare ya, +1.

Is this one change too many to Facebook? Will you be closing your account, or are you happy for Facebook to mess you around forever?

They had one next to the iPad display – “Scan to learn more about iPad2″ – and various codes on game and DVD displays that you could scan to watch the trailers.

Trouble is, my Tesco has no in-store wifi and rubbish reception, never mind 3G.

Even if it did have 3G, data allowance is limited and expensive once the allowance runs out – I’m not gonna use it to stream a video trailer or a commercial for an iPad.

So I have to say, “good effort, Tesco” and give them points for trying. Clubcard points.

QR codes work great for that kind of thing in magazines, when you can scan and watch over wifi, or in a full 3G area should data allowance not be a concern, but in a cavernous, dead zone warehouse of a supermarket they’re just not suited.

What do you think of QR codes in retail? How could they be used better?

I have to admit – and I hate having to admit stuff – it’s actually pretty good fun. But I do have one problem with it, and that’s that GPS tracking can sometimes be pretty innacurate and leaves the game open to cheating.

A few times, earlier in the week, I checked in whilst standing in the place and foursquare didn’t give me any points, saying “your phone thinks you’re a little too far away from this place to check in” – yup, it basically called me a big Cheaty McCheaterson.

This happened at Airdrie train station while I was on the platform, Waverley Station, again while I was on the platform, and Sainsbury’s across from my work while I was standing outside.

I know why this happened. It was because the weather was awful and it was so overcast that my phone couldn’t get a GPS fix. It still thought I was at home when I tried to check in at Airdrie station, and it thought I was in Blackridge (must’ve gotten a brief fix on en route) when I was actually in Edinburgh for the other two.

So I got to thinking, how could you stop that from happening? If GPS is having an off day, how could you make sure foursquare doesn’t penalise you for checking in to places?

What I would like to see would be the use of QR codes. I had been watching a video of a guy getting a QR code tattooed on him to produce an animated tattoo, and I thought “wouldn’t it be cool if each venue had a unique QR code on a foursquare branded sticker or poster, and the mobile app had a QR scanner? You could scan the code to check in, and eliminate the need for GPS.”

It seemed so obvious, I figured others must have thought of it before, and I was right. Turns out this idea has been kicking around for quite a while, and a lot of 3rd party developers have actually implemented it; the trouble is that it doesn’t have the uptake from businesses that it needs to be a success, and it requires a 3rd party app to do the scanning.

Not every venue will want to generate and print off a QR code, but places like Domino’s Pizza and Wetherspoon’s, who do special deals for Mayors, should give some serious thought to doing it.

As it stands there’s nothing to stop me from standing within a few meters of Domino’s Pizza, checking in, and wandering off without so much as even looking at the menu. I could become the Mayor of my local Domino’s Pizza without ever spending a penny in the place. But, if I was only able to check in via a QR scan and the code was kept behind the counter, only available on request, I would have to buy something before I could check in.

As I said, it’s not entirely practical. Each location would need their own QR code, the mobile app would need a scanner built in and foursquare would have to allow venues to opt out of check-in via GPS, but I think it would be worth the effort. Mayorships and check-ins to places doing Specials would be a truer reflection of the business’s foursquare using customer base, which would in turn give them a more accurate measure of how well their foursquare offers are performing for them.

I’m no businessman, but I reckon I’d want to know if I was giving discounts or free stuff to people who claim to be loyal, regular customers but actually aren’t.

So, this is a call to foursquare to implement QR check-ins in the mobile app and sell the concept to your corporate clients. Your users want it – if you sell it right, I bet businesses will want it too.

Do you use foursquare? Have you ever had trouble like I did? Would you like to see a QR check-in made available? Leave a comment and let me know. KG.