Free pizza from Foursquare too good to be true?

It is pizza for dinner tonight. I usually order a tasty vegan pizza from Hell’s Pizza but seeing the recent news from Marketing about Domino’s promotion with Foursquare I thought I’d check them out.

Foursquare is a location sharing social network and game, awarding points and achievements for people who “check-in” from locations with their mobile phones. The top achievement at an establishment on Foursqaure is to be Mayor, the person who has checked in the most.

Debenhams is trialing a promotion in one location, rewarding the most frequent Foursquare visitor with a daily free cup of coffee. Like in Marketing, it was also reported in Electric Pig and other blogs, that Foursquare has “inked a deal” with Domino’s Pizza, offering a free pizza to the Foursquare Mayor every week.

The news spread on Twitter and I was eager to find out more and join in. But, after a Google search, I couldn’t find out any real details.

Unable to find any information, I turned to a source I knew would be reliable: PR people.

Within 15 minutes, I got a reply.

There is a lot of misreporting about this link up at the moment. One of our franchisees in Liverpool has linked up with FourSquare – but we aren’t doing anything at the moment on a national level.

We are in initial discussions with FourSquare and will update you if there’s any progress.

Disappointing news, but it is also a good sign of what innovative social media marketing might be coming soon.