Earlier this week, VisitPA, the tourism bureau of our great state, launched a foray into Foursquare, one of the world’s most popular location-based social networks. It’s not the first such civic endeavor into reputation building, but it is one of the largest, geographically speaking, to date.

Some Penn State locations are highlighted too. The Tavern Restaurant is listed (the state explains “it’s crowded because it’s so good”), as is the Creamery (but, Pennsylvania, it’s Peachy Paterno not Paterno Peach!). The Creamery also counts as a point towards earning your PA Shooflyer badge— visit two more restaurants from this list and you’ve got it. The other two badges are PA Retail Polka— no prizes for guessing what kind of locations are in that package– and PA 4 Score & 7, a history based badge that doesn’t list any Penn State places. What about the All Sports Museum?

Pennsylvania beating Penn State in embracing the social network is disappointing though. Back when Harvard teamed up with Foursquare, we noted that Penn State should do the same thing– and indeed, on a collegiate level we’ve seen just that. Maybe Old Main has already shot down the idea– though considering the new media finesse evidenced in Penn State’s “social networking” presence (most notably its Twitter account), I’m not surprised we haven’t seen anything yet. Maybe they’ll ask for our help in whipping something up?