“Love checking in and seeing that you’ve passed your record for weeks in a row at the gym? Now we’ve made it easier to share the insights you see after you check in on Twitter, Facebook, and more. Just tap the share button to show off your 30-week gym streak, an awesome special that you unlocked, or a great tip from a friend.”
When a user checks in they are shown how many similar businesses they have checked into recently and now data from their account can be shared with a users social networks. read more
Foursquare has been shifting its platform lately in an attempt to realign itself as a Yelp web 3.0 of sorts, and on Monday the company rolled out ad retargeting and in-app ads support.
The company is currently seeking out advertisers who want to re-target ads to Web users based on their check-ins and to serve up interstitial ads via the Foursquare mobile apps platforms.
Foursquare has had a hard time raising money lately, relying on a funding round based around loans instead of outright investments. Many analysts have questioned whether or not the Foursquare business model is feasible.
Under the new system, users who check into stores might see a pop-up for that store’s products immediately upon check-in. Users might then see the same or similar ads the next time they are sitting at their desktop or using their notebook. read more
St. Patrick’s Day is here again and with it, the need to go out and get ourselves sloshed on some beer. This time around though, we have our handy smartphone’s to help us with the task at hand. Here are some of the best apps you’ll need for an awesome St. Patrick’s Day:
Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley believes the company can survive in the local search business by pulling in API data from third-party developers who use the company’s platform to generate location based data.
Speaking at a keynote presentation at South by Southwest Crowley explained:
“If people think it’s all about mayorships, that muddles the story. We’re starting to put a lot of that stuff in the background.”
Foursquare currently provides its API to more than 40,000 developers who utilize the company’s 50 million points of interest.
Among Foursquare’s users are the Twitter-owned Vine, Facebook’s Instagram and mobile network Path. read more
Instagram has passed a huge milestone, announcing that it now serves more than 100 million monthly active users.
Announced in a blog post by co-founder Kevin Systrom, the news of the tremendous milestone arrives just 28 months after Instagram launched to much fanfare.
In mid-January Instagram announced that it has reached 90 million monthly active users (MAUs). The 90 million mark was the first time Instagram had ever officially revealed MAU data.
News of the 100 million users milestone and the company’s growth of nearly 10 million users in one month arrives after the company’s announced TOS changes caused an uproar and promises of fleeing the photo-based network. read more
Foursquare is expanding its Explore feature to non-members.
A new link button via the Foursquare Web service allows members to share a link to venue pages for people who do not use Foursquare.
The mobile app rolled out a button for the service in early February, priming the platform for further expansion.
The new feature generates a URL that can be accessed without logging into Foursquare.
Many analysts have complained that Foursquare needs to expand its service to survive an onslaught on competition. By allowing non-members to access venue information the company could become a more capable open ratings and local search platform. read more
We know women have flocked to Pinterest but that isn’t the only part of the demographic landscape worth investigating. A new study by the Pew Center on Internet and American Life has found that middle-class and non-urban users are also very popular on the social network.
The study found that 67 percent of respondents used Facebook, 16 percent used Twitter and 15 percent used Pinterest. Instagram was in fourth place at 13 percent and Tumblr maintained six percent of responses.
While only five percent of respondents were men the study actually found that women in general are more engaged on social networking. For example, 72 percent of women use Facebook compared to 62 percent of men. read more
Location based service Foursquare has partnered with TV station BET to celebrate Black History Month.
Using the Foursquare platform users can find 100 places in the United States that hold significance in African-American history.
By checking into well known locations such as the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C. and the African American Art & Culture Center in San Francisco, users can unlock the “Say It Loud” badge.
The new badge will be made available all year long, allowing users to show their pride for African American history or just to earn a new badge.
BET is also giving users the chance to have their voices heard, simply use the hashtag #BETBHM during your check-in and BET will display those check-ins on its own geo-location enabled map. read more
Foursquare has lost product manager Christen Duong. After two years with the company she announced plans to move from New York City to San Francisco. Christen is making the move so she can join another starup, Flipboard.
Christen was a fast moving achiever for Foursquare, over her short time with the company she helped roll out a completely redesigned mobile app. She also helped role out the Explore tab for discovering new venues and helped in the development of contextual pages that show tips from friends alongside pictures they post.
Just as she did at Foursquare Duong will help Flipboard develop better content discovery methodologies for its various publishing partners. read more
Foursquare on Tuesday debuted a stand-alone mobile app geared towards businesses. The new app delivers the location based services Web business venue management tools to mobile devices. The app is targeted towards small business owners.
Available for Google Android and Apple iOS apps the new Business app allows business managers to create updates about their businesses and then push those updates out to current customers.
Business users can also use the new Foursquare app to share updates via Twitter and Facebook.
As an added benefit business owners can also turn on and off specials and monitor recent check-ins. read more
Foursquare on Wednesday launched an updated iOS app that offers incentives when users share their check-in insights on Facebook and Twitter.
