How Companies Are Using Data from Foursquare. When Foursquare began, it was easy to wonder what the point was beyond the game.
It asked people to “check in” when visiting places like shops, bars, or restaurants and then gave them a chance to compete for virtual prizes, like badges and recognition as “mayor” after visiting a place more than anyone else. Now, with more than nine million users, Foursquare is beginning to prove its value to businesses. It is becoming the rare social-media service that lets them directly analyze whether promotions lead to sales. Take RadioShack, a company aiming to survive the price wars in consumer electronics by driving in-store sales. It first partnered with Foursquare last August to offer a 10 percent discount to anyone who checked in on a phone at one of its locations and 20 percent to any RadioShack “mayor.” After the initial promotion and a successful holiday campaign, the company launched a “newbie special” to target more Foursquare shoppers. Four legal predictions for Foursquare. While the percentage of people actively sharing their location may still be pretty small, it feels like we're zooming toward an event horizon, beyond which everyone will be opting in - and checking in - to location services like Foursquare, Places, and others.
Skeptics about the uptake of location services remain, but I'm not one of them. Foursquare Targets College Students with New Universities Program. Foursquare announced the rollout its Foursquare for Universities program Thursday afternoon, designed to help students, alumni and staff share information about classes, building hours, campus activities and traditions, and other information.
Late nights at the library are now a little bit better thanks to the geosocial service, which will reward you in badges what you missed in sleep (depending on how much value you put on virtual badges, anyways). And if you start to see more compsci majors at the Homecoming football game this season, you can thank Foursquare's school spirit badge for that, too. The startup has partnered with 20 universities for the launch, along with student ambassadors located at several dozen others. If your university isn't one of them, however, don't despair; Foursquare makes it easy for users to claim and build a university page on the service with a short questionnaire.
Students can even request custom badges for their school. Foursquare: A Glimpse at the Future. Foursquare CEO and co-founder Dennis Crowley spoke on how the location-based service plans to dominate "what happens after the checkin" at Wednesday's ad:tech conference.
Crowley delivered his remarks on the same day Facebook made several major announcements about its Places product. While Crowley still sees the checkin as a necessary component of Foursquare's service, he believes the real value of location-based services begins after that entry point. "We talk a lot about what's after the checkin," explained Crowley. Foursquare vs. Gowalla: Who’s Winning the Geolocation War? Foursquare Beats Facebook Places in Reader Vote. Facebook has made its grand entrance into the geolocation space with Facebook Places.
Will users embrace it and ditch Foursquare? That's the question we posed in this week's Web Faceoff, our ongoing series comparing technology apps or ideas. We asked you which location-based service you preferred: Facebook Places or Foursquare? This week's winner: Foursquare! The contest wasn't even close; with 57.11% of the vote (1,611 votes), Foursquare remained the king of geolocation. Many of you pointed out that Facebook Places and Foursquare are likely to be used by different types of people for different purposes. How I became a Foursquare cyberstalker.
Louise has straight, auburn hair and, judging by the only photograph I have of her, she's in her 30s.
She works in recruitment. I also know which train station she uses regularly, what supermarket she shopped at last night and where she met her friends for a meal in her home town last week. At this moment, she is somewhere inside the pub in front of me meeting with colleagues after work. Louise is a complete stranger. Until 10 minutes ago when I discovered she was located within a mile of me, I didn't even know of her existence. Foursquare is the latest social networking tool to generate online buzz. Foursquare looks beyond location: Is your check-in startup in trouble? Foursquare announced a new partnership today, hinting at how the startup’s ambitions extend beyond location check-ins.
The new partnership is with Runkeeper, a mobile application for tracking your running and jogging activity. When users connect their accounts, they can earn Foursquare badges for their activity in Runkeeper, for example earning a Marathon badge when they run a marathon. Foursquare says this is “the first badge you unlock by doing something, not just checking in.” That also means the badges won’t really be connected to your location, at least not in the way Foursquare’s other badges are — you earn a Gym Rat badge by going to the gym, while you earn Runkeeper badges by running anywhere.
Foursquare: A Glimpse at the Future.