Friday morning's Takeaway started with an apparently simple question: Where are you and what are you doing? The next question might’ve been obvious: Why? Before we even explained it, we were finding out about the morning routines of the people on the other side of the speaker. People “checked in” with us from the kitchen, the New Jersey Turnpike, the bathtub, and we got hundreds more responses by the time the morning was out. There was no apparent reason to call us other than for the sake of calling us, but the real reason was to try an ambitious experiment in social networking.

Nowadays even grandparents have some idea what Twitter and Facebook are, but only rabid iPhone users know about something called Foursquare. Foursquare is an application for the iPhone (and any cellphone, really) that lets people know where you are simply by checking in (except they employ the bells and whistles of a GPS-enabled 3G mobile device). The value? Well that’s what we wanted to explore.

Do you feel closer to people just by finding out what they’re doing? Does your interest in the mundane actions of a peer somehow forge a better understanding of them? Is there a social benefit to connecting with people just for the sake of connecting? These were the questions on my mind when I proposed this rather outlandish idea for our show. And the answers might also explain why Twitter, Facebook and now Foursquare are taking off in spite of the dismissive comments of some vocal early observers. Here’s what I took away for the experiment: People like to play.

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Science is leaving the lab with "citizen science," which asks volunteers to participate in local experiments that contribute to a greater scientific end. View a slideshow of "citizen science" experiments that you can conduct, ranging in size from the subatomic to the galactic after the jump.

When I try to explain to people that I'm really into four square these days, I get a lot of blank looks. That's the natural reaction, given that most people's first association is of course to think of the schoolyard game. And sure, that's good fun, but I haven't played it in probably 15 years. The Foursquare I'm referring to is a kind of game, and a kind of social networking service -- and yes, you can score points, but that's only part of the fun.

Foursquare, from the same programmers who created the much loved and now closed service Dodgeball (they have a thing for games), is a mobile social networking game -- you "check in" from wherever you are, either using their iPhone app or via text message, and it lets your friends know where you are and what you're doing. This is useful enough as it is, and joins the growing ranks of location services like Loopt and Google Latitude that are all about broadcasting where you are and keeping track of your movements. Instead of connecting people through friends of friends, these networks connect people through what they do and where they go. Rather than learning about you by reading your list of favorite movies, I can find out what your favorite bars are, and how you spend a Saturday afternoon. Foursquare adds another element to this interaction, though: You get points for your check ins, and badges for reaching certain achievements; for instance, the Bender Badge is awarded if you check in more than four times in a row in any given week.

The points don't get you anything, except for the respect and admiration of other Foursquare users. There's a leaderboard you can check out from your iPhone, which ranks you against your friends and other people in your city (so far, the service is available in Austin, Boston, Chicago, Denver, LA, Minneapolis, NYC, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC). Since each check in means points, there's an incentive to check in with every little thing you do -- it gets addictive quickly. At the deli? Better check in! Waiting at the bus stop? Let the world know about it! Like the absurd mundanity of Twitter, Foursquare encourages broadcasting the small stuff, letting people know where you went for lunch. And that's exactly the appeal -- get to know what I do, and you'll get to know who I am. And there's an undeniable joy at finding yourself near the top of the week's leaderboard. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go check in -- I'm trying to earn some points here.

You can check in, too -- The Takeaway's playing a game with your morning routine, and you can revel in the glory of winning points by calling in to 1-877-8-MY-TAKE, by emailing us at mytake@thetakeaway.org or by leaving a comment. Let us know the insane and incredibly mundane things you're up to. Instructions are here.

Scott Lamb is a senior editor at BuzzFeed. Related:
• Where you at? Foursquare maps it out
• Playing with radio: Behind the scenes of The Takeaway's "Where are you?" game
• What are you doing right now?
• The thrill of checking in with our listeners

We're talking about the online/offline game Foursquare this morning, and we're playing a game on air and online at The Takeaway.

It's easy to play. Call us at 1-877-8-MY-TAKE, email us at mytake@thetakeaway.org, or leave a comment to check in. Tell us where you are and what you're doing. Be as specific as possible. And don't forget to tell us your name or handle!

You know what we're doing right now. It's time to tell us what YOU'RE doing! No matter how mundane or insane! If you're in the kitchen: Call us. If you're on the subway: Call us. Fleeing the country? Call us! You get a point each time you check in. And you'll get bonus points for frequency and outlandishness. Look for a leader board Friday morning at thetakeaway.org.

Read more about the absurd satisfaction of playing Foursquare.

View badge-winning submissions after the jump...

The 25 Random Things phenomenon that took over Facebook in early '09 is waning, in part because it's the nature of viral memes to slow down over time, in part because, well, it was getting a little irritating. To anyone who spends much time online, the 25 Random Things idea is as old as time, or at least as old as the heyday LiveJournal. We've all either received clueless email chain letter forwards from friends, or, let's be honest, forwarded them ourselves, and the idea that such a lame part of digital culture has morphed its way into the walled garden of Facebook is somehow galling. Earnestness tends to take a beating online, and 25 Random Things is nothing if not earnest. Earnest, and not particularly amusing, either.

But now that it's happened once, it's more likely to happen again. Already a host of similar chain notes have appear in the wake of 25 Random Things -- Google 8 Ball, Random iTunes Answers, One Word Answers -- that you can expect to be clogging up your News Feed for some time to come. They're variations on a theme: Numbered lists that give you a chance to reveal tidbits of yourself in a canned way, seemingly risk-free and somewhat pat, if also occasionally illuminating and even sweet. Plus, they tend to be kind of long and time-consuming to write (even, weirdly, the One Word Answers).

So let's try starting a new one, something shorter, easier, less earnest and possibly way more interesting. Feel free to grab the idea and post your own notes -- let's see if we can make this one take off.

8 Things I Wish I Didn't Know

Rules: Share 8 things you wish you'd never learned, heard, seen, tasted or smelled or otherwise came to know. Then tag 8 people whose 8 worst things you'd like to know, too.

1. Learned: Exactly how a hot dog gets created.

2. Seen: Al Pacino in "The Devil's Advocate."

3. Tasted: Swedish blood sausage.

4. Learned: How you get rid of an eye worm.

5. Smelled: The reek that comes with cleaning out a rat's nest.

6. Heard: The sound a human body makes when it hits the ground from a great height.

7. Seen: The Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport after midnight.

8. Heard: The failed campaign song "Hillary 4 U and Me" -- that's nothing against Hillary or her campaign, I just really wish I had never heard that song. Even writing this now, the tune just appeared in my head again.

OK, your turn!

Scott Lamb is a senior editor at BuzzFeed.

Google Inc. unveiled a new tool today, in collaboration with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that estimates flu incidence though user searches on google.com. By tracking the searches state by state, Google's map may be able to provide data on where and how flu is spreading days faster than existing techniques.

View Google.org's Flu Trends site »

"Cloud computing" is just a buzzword, but major software players are betting on computing that happens over the Internet rather than on desktops. Yesterday Microsoft unveiled its brand new "cloud-based" operating system, and if you use Facebook, Skype, Google Documents, or Apple's MobileMe, you are already computing in the cloud.