| Feb. 8th, 2012

Foursquare and MTV Want You to Broadcast That You've Been Tested for STDs

Culture

By Exception Staff | August 31, 2010

Only four percent of Americans have bothered to broadcast their whereabouts via Foursquare and all the other fancy new location sharing start-ups that venture capitalists keep throwing millions of dollars at.

According to tech research firm Forrester, of the few that use these mobile location services, eighty percent are men and 70 percent are between 19 and 35. And presumably a few of these geeks are having sex.

Enter MTV, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and the Centers for Disease Control. They've teamed up with Foursquare to launch a program called GYT that lets young people "check-in" to an STD clinic with their mobile phones. This action is then shared with everybody on the network. A set of lucky users can win a trip to New York City for participating.

Here are the key quotes, courtesy of Mediabistro.com.

MTV general manager Stephen Friedman said:

MTV is proud to join forces with foursquare on their first-ever cause-related badge, giving our audience the tools to take activism to a whole new level. Through the power of foursquare, our initiative can take a single personal action and amplify it into a rallying cry that can break down stigmas surrounding STD testing.

And foursquare director of business development Jonathan Crowley added:

We've been continually impressed by MTV's innovative uses of the foursquare platform. We're excited to see them integrating foursquare in their campaign to raise awareness of such an important cause and drive people to action.

Would you share that you've had an STD test with your social network? Share your thoughts below.