The New York Times is reporting today that Starbucks will be the first major brand to partner with up-and-coming social network FourSquare in an experiment that will offer rewards to customers who allow their movements to be tracked by their phone's GPS as they enter and leave Starbucks stores. When a FourSquare users walks into a location, be it a coffee shop, restaurant, or even their office, their GPS-enabled phone automatically sends out an alert across the network broadcasting their entry into that space. The idea is to make it easy for your friends to identify your favorite hang-outs and hotspots and to create a system where you can pass on notes and recommendations about the places you visit. Visiting a location is called "Checking In" and when you visit a location often, you can earn special game-like badges and points to increase your status at those places. For example here's the FourSquare page for a StarBucks in Burnaby

Starting today in the US, Foursquare users who visit five separate Starbucks locations will unlock a special Barista Badge. Initially Starbucks is using the partnership in order to get feedback from FourSquare users, to learn about how they use the novel social network to interact with their stores, and then from there plan to start offering specific rewards, from free coffees to those who pass by a Starbucks location or invites to special events. 

Neither Starbucks or FourSquare have released any official word on the program, nor is there any indication if the new Barista badge or upcoming rewards will be offered to Canadians. Outside of FourSquare the coffee chain does offer a reward system based on stars collected through visits on membership cards, but it's not available in Canada, making it unlikely that the FourSquare rewards program would be activated here too.