Foursquare Headlines
Radio Shack Says Foursquare Users Spend 3.5X More
Radio Shack CMO Lee Applbaum made a revelation last week that helps explain why national retail chains are warming to Foursquare. ”Foursquare users at Radio Shack generally spend three-and-a-half times more compared to what non-Foursquare users [spend],” Applbaum said, while speaking at the Ad Age Digital conference.
Foursquare-enabled ad dishes out dog food
Foursquare has finally made itself useful—to non-humans, anyway. As seen in the video below, a pet-food company in Germany has put up a billboard urging you to check in at the location on Foursquare—and in return, it spits out some dog food for your best friend to nosh on. This is a step forward for Foursquare, which is not known for providing much nourishment to really any living thing.
Foursquare Moves to Become the Rosetta Stone for All Location Data
Could the expansion of Foursquare’s API allow it to become a universal look-up list for venue and location data for all location based services online? In a blog posting late yesterday,Foursquare tried to summarize where it stands in its long-term vision, and set out its thoughts about “the foundation that underlies a lot of the location-based world.”
A whole new world of Specials
Last year, we introduced the foursquare Merchant Platform to give businesses an easy way to reward their customers and find new ones. We wanted to give merchants a way to learn more about their best customers and start offering Specials to help them get new people into their location.
Foursquare 3.0 Has Arrived: Here’s What’s New
Foursquare, the location-based mobile game startup that pioneered the checkin, will introduce version 3.0 Tuesday evening. The new release turns on the power of every checkin accumulated over the course of its two-year history and transforms that data into recommendations.
About Foursquare
Profile: Foursquare is a location-based social networking (LBSN) application that enables users to “check-in” from various locations and share that information with friends. Users are incentivized through gaming elements that award virtual “badges” based on certain types or combinations of check-ins. One can also become “mayor” of a location by collecting the most check-ins over the last 60 days. Users can share their check-ins and awards with Foursquare friends as well as through Facebook and Twitter. The primary value for consumers is the ability to share one’s location with friends and facilitate potential meetups. The gaming aspects (badges and mayorships) drive frequency and encourage customer engagement. The tips can offer user recommendations, much like Yelp, and the media partnerships provide geographically relevant content to those who subscribe to feeds such as Bravo TV and the Wall Street Journal. Discovery of new locations is facilitated via Fousquare’s recommendation system. Foursquare recommendations allows users to search for potential places of interest based on their check-in history, the check-ins of friends, and the check-ins of users with similar check-in profiles.
Promotional Mechanisms: Foursquare allows businesses the opportunity to “claim” storefront locations and then offer special discounts or rewards to customers for checking in. Currently, there are seven types of specials that businesses can offer customers: mayor specials (offered to a location’s mayor), check-in specials (one-time specials offered to customers for checking-in), swarm specials (offered when a large number of customers check-in at the same time), friends specials (offered to customers that check in with friends), newbie specials (offered to customers checking in for the first time), flash specials (short-term deals offered to a limited number of customers for being the first to check in at a specific day and time), and loyalty specials (offered to customers every X number of check-ins). Foursquare offers brands without physical storefronts promotional opportunities as well. Brands such as Bravo, IFC, and Bon Appétit have created profiles that offer tips on physical locations that are designed to increase brand engagement and reinforce the overall brand image. For example, customers who are friends of Bravo may be offered tips on the restaurants featured in an episode of Top Chef or the favorite cocktails of a cast member of The Real Housewives at a particular nightclub.
Screenshots:
Number of Users: 10 million (May, 2011)
Availability: Worldwide
Mobile Platforms: iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile
Follow Foursquare
Author: Derek Browers
Archived Headlines
AmEx Teams Up With Foursquare
American Express Co. has struck a deal to offer discounts to shoppers via Foursquare Labs Inc., the two-year-old start-up that lets users win prizes and meet people by using their mobile phones to “check in” at their favorite bars, restaurants and stores.
Foursquare Check-Ins: Surpasses 200,000 on Super Bowl Sunday
Foursquare is fast becoming a popular social network, it has recently teamed up with colleges and universities, we have spoken to you about its growth seeing it meet 6 million users and we have also asked you if you are taking advantage of its deals. Now we wanted to report to you just how it did at the Super Bowl. They were trialing and experimenting with checking-in to a virtual venue called ‘Super Bowl Sunday’.
So we grew by 3400% last year
Honestly, 2010 was just insane. The numbers tell the story better than we can, so we put together this little infographic. (Also, our 6,000,000th user signed up last week!)
Foursquare Valued at Over $250 Million to Seek New Funding
Foursquare Labs Inc., the wireless service that lets users broadcast their whereabouts to friends, is valued at more than $250 million and will probably hold another round of financing later this year, its co-founder said.
The 25 Hottest Restaurants on Foursquare
Foursquare users have been there—deliberating over whether or not to check in to dull, or worse, chain restaurants that won’t up any food lover’s cred (there’s a reason Outback midtown only has 411 hits). That’s never the case at these New York dining haunts that get the most traffic on the social networking site.
Foursquare Launches Detailed Information for Businesses
Foursquare this afternoon launched a new and improved section of their site for businesses looking to partner with the service. The new pages help explain to businesses the options that are available to them for connecting to their customers and followers. It’s broken into two sections: merchants and brands.
Foursquare Surpasses 1 Million Photo Check-Ins
Foursquare said in a statement today that over a million photos have been uploaded to its service by the week ended January 9, 2011. The 1 millionth photo was checked-in by Emmanuel E. from Paris, Foursquare recognized.“Our next goal, 1,000,000,000, (photos uploaded) will take a bit longer…” the company’s spokesperson said.
Foursquare to Add Examiner News Alongside Check-Ins
Geo-location service Foursquare has netted content deals with several major news publishers last year, such as the NYT andFinancial Times but those were mostly for promotional purchases. The company has struck a new partnership with hyperlocal news provider Examiner.com, which will add reviews to Foursquare users’ mobile feeds in the 288 cities the news service operates in.
Boom! 5 Million Users Check-In to Foursquare
It appears that Foursquare has just passed 5 million users if new user account numbers are correct. It’s taken just a month and a half for the location-based social network to accumulate one million more members. It took the same amount of time for Foursquare to reach four million members and for the network to hit 3 million users.
FourMillionSquare: Foursquare processes its four millionth user registration
When Facebook launched places in mid-August, many predicted that foursquare would not be able to compete against Facebook’s huge user numbers. It’s clear that the introduction of Facebook Places has not had a negative effect on foursquare’s user growth. This morning they processed their 4 millionth user registration.
Two colleges promoting events in unique ways with foursquare
Colleges are the perfect environment for foursquare. Mobile phone and social network use are rampant and the compact nature of a college campus makes it easy to walk to a place once you’ve found friends’ locations using the service.
Conan O’Brien Lets People Check In to His Blimp on Foursquare
New York agency Breakfast created a “trackable experience” for Conan O’Brien’s blimp. For the blimp’s tour of the Eastern seaboard during the month of October, Breakfast made it possible for people to check in on Foursquare when they saw the blimp fly overhead.
