Just a few short years ago, Twitter was being used by the same people who are now becoming addicted to Foursquare. Yet, many people online are sputtering about how Foursquare is some passing fad, and will quickly fade into nothingness. We’re not so sure that’s true.

What is Foursquare? It’s a website that helps you mark your location anytime you go somewhere. You earn points for doing checkins, and can earn badges as well. For example, if you check in from any one place often enough, you’ll become known as the “mayor” of that location.

Sound lame? Possibly… but didn’t Twitter sound lame when it first launched? How many of us were scoffing back then as to how Twitter would become nothing more than a memory in a short amount of time?

Businesses – and you – should not count Foursquare out just yet. We have a feeling it could become a huge success for one very good reason: businesses are going to soon realize that this could be an even better way to engage their customers than even the almighty Twitter. When you know where your customers are, you can better cater to their needs. As more and more people peg where they spend their time, we’re going to start seeing businesses making offers based on location.

Twitter has been going strong since 2006, and has yet to add any real additional features, despite the massive influx of funding recently. Foursquare is already working on a long list of things to add, including a Twitter-like application to let us talk to each other via the site. Now that they’ve secured funding of their own – there’s no limit to what we might see.

Foursquare may be “lame”, but we have a feeling we’re going to see a LOT coming out of this little game in the very near future. Twitter might want to watch over their proverbial shoulder.

What are your thoughts? Have you used Foursquare yet, or something similar?