Dear Foursquare – 3 features I’d love you to add

Foursquare started as one of those things I wasn’t sure I wanted (or needed). Now it is a fun part of my daily social media routine and something I do miss when I don’t have access to it (it’s a long story, but it involves American phone companies and their ridiculous international data usage rates).

But as someone who does a lot of thinking about social media and social media strategy I’ve been wondering how Foursquare could go from great to brilliant.

Dennis Crowley and his crew at Foursquare are doing great things, but I figured why not make a few suggestions for things I’d love to see on Foursquare. Hey you never know …

Dear Foursquare – 3 features I’d love you to add:

Meetup Planning: I’d love to be able to select a group of friends I have on Foursquare (and other social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, but let’s not get greedy) and suggest a future meetup at a location on Foursquare. Ideally Foursquare would track "yes," "no" and "maybe" responses and send me a reminder or two at times I pick.

A Better Recommendation Engine: Based on my checkins at every coffee shop I can find, for example, I would love to be able to toggle on or off alerts about coffee shops I have not yet tried. Maybe I can pick up to three categories of places I always want to be alerted about and a certain distance away from wherever I am. For example: "Hey Mike, Foursquare noticed you are within 2 miles of a restaurant that serves Mexican. Do you want to check it out?" Being able to save this heads up for a future visit would also be great.

The "Why-Didn’t-I-Think-of-That? " Wheel of Discovery: So I’m in a new city (or just in my own city and looking for a new experience) why not have a "spin the wheel" option where Foursquare randomly selects five things it knows are nearby (distance to be determined by me or Foursquare). This would be a good addition. To make it great, maybe each user's "wheel" learns over time as people accept or reject specific recommendations.

So what do you say Dennis and crew? Can these features be added? I know it would sure increase my use of Foursquare.

What do you think? What other features would you like added to Foursquare?