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Foursquare City Guide

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4square
Type of businessPrivate
Type of site
Social Networking
Available inEnglish
FoundedNew York City, New York, USA
Headquarters
New York City, New York
,
United States
Area servedWorldwide
Founder(s)Dennis Crowley
Naveen Selvadurai
Key peopleDennis Crowley
Naveen Selvadurai
Employees32
URLhttp://foursquare.com
RegistrationRequired
Users4 million[1]
LaunchedMarch 11, 2009
Current statusActive

Foursquare is a location-based social networking website, software for mobile devices. Users "check-in" at venues using a mobile website, text messaging or a device-specific application.[2] They are then awarded points and sometimes "badges." The service was created in 2009 by Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai; Crowley had previously founded the similar project Dodgeball, which Google bought in 2005 and shut down in 2009, replacing it with Google Latitude.

On September 1, 2010, the World Economic Forum announced the company as a Technology Pioneer for 2011.[3]

Overview

Showing nearby venues on the Foursquare Andoid application.
Showing nearby venues on the Foursquare Android application.

Foursquare is a web and mobile application that allows registered users to connect with friends and update their location. Points are awarded for "checking in" at venues. Users can choose to have their check-ins posted on their accounts on Twitter, Facebook or both. In version 1.3 of their iPhone application, Foursquare enabled push-notification of friend updates, which they call "Pings." Users can also earn badges by checking in at locations with certain tags, for check-in frequency or for other patterns such as time of check-in.[4] The company has stated that users will be able to add their own custom badges to the site in the future. If a user has checked-in to a venue on more days (meaning only one check-in per day qualifies for calculating mayorship) than anyone else in the past 60 days, the check-ins are valid under Foursquare's time and distance protocols, and they have a profile photo, they will be crowned "Mayor" of that venue, until someone else earns the title by checking in more times than the previous mayor.[5] In August 26, 2010, Foursquare rolled out a new feature which notifies users of the number of days left before he or she is crowned "Mayor." When a user "checks in" to a venue on Foursquare via a mobile app, if he or she is within 10 check-ins of becoming the mayor, Foursquare alerts the user of the days left before becoming mayor on the check-in confirmation screen.[6] Users can create a "To Do" list for their private use and add "Tips" to venues that other users can read, which serve as suggestions for great things to do, see or eat at the location.[7]

Foursquare started out in 2009 with limited availability in only 100 worldwide metro areas.[8] In January 2010, Foursquare changed their location model to allow check-ins from any location worldwide.[9] As of March 2010, the service had 500,000 users internationally.[10]

Foursquare currently has iPhone, Android, webOS, Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry applications.[11] A Maemo application is in early development stage and is not featured on the Foursquare website.[12] Users with Symbian phones and Pocket PCs (Windows Mobile touchscreen) can use Foursquare via Waze, which is also available for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry.[13] Also, there's another application for Symbian users, named "Sym4Square", which is similar to the application for Android, BlackBerry and iPhone.[14] Users may also use their mobile browsers to access Foursquare mobile, but feature phone users must search for venues manually instead of using GPS that PDA applications can use.[15]

Partnerships

In February 2010, the company entered into new commercial partnerships with Zagat, Bravo, Conde Nast, The New York Times and several other firms to offer tips, specials and new badges to followers.[16][17]

Foursquare acknowledged a grass-roots effort that started in Tampa, Florida [18] by declaring April 16 "Foursquare Day" via both Twitter[19] and Facebook.[20] The city of Manchester, New Hampshire is officially declaring April 16 "Foursquare Day."[21]

Awards

In 2010, Foursquare is a runner-up in the T3 Gadget Awards 2010 as the App of the Year.[22]

In August 2010, the company is named Finalist in Lead411's New York City Hot 125.[23]

In April 2010, Foursquare receives a Webby Award as one of the best mobile social networks.[24]

In March 2010, Foursquare was nominated for the 13th annual SXSW Web Awards in the Mobile Category.[25]

Foursquare was named a 2011 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum in the Information Technologies and New Media category.[26]

Foursquare 2.0

In September of 2010 Foursquare announced version 2.0 of its check-in app which helps to direct users to new locations and activities, rather than just sharing their location with friends. The list of personal list of places and activities, called to-dos, has been separated from the general advice from other users section called "tips". Foursquare has also created a button that will add any location in the app to a user's to-do list, and the app will now remind the user when there are to-do items nearby. Third party sites such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Zagat have added an "Add to My foursquare" button, which will add the location to the user's to-do list. [27]

Badges

Badges are earned by checking into various venues. Some cities have city-specific badges that can only be earned in a specific city. Foursquare has, however, changed the way they handle badges, and now when a user gains a badge, he or she has the same badges across all cities. Once a badge is earned by a player, it will remain on that user's profile indefinitely.

The Foursquare staff are very secretive about how to unlock many badges. There are a handful of introductory badges that are earned as milestones in usage. Some badges are tied to venue "tags" and the badge earned depends on the tags applied to the venue.[28] Other badges may be specific to a city, venue, event, or date. Some badges use identical icons, but are earned differently. There are a few badges that are named similarly, but applied differently, specifically Far Far Away, Trifecta and I'm on a Boat.

On September 23, 2010, Foursquare announced that users can now earn badges for completing tasks as well as checking in.[29]

On October 22, 2010, astronaut Doug Wheelock unlocked the NASA Explorer badge by checking into Foursquare from the International Space Station.[30][31]

Superuser status

The service provides three levels of "Superuser status" (which is not to be confused with the "Super User" badge). Superuser status is conferred on users who check in frequently or enter new venue information into Foursquare.

  • Superuser level 1 can edit venue info (address, cross street, phone, Twitter names, map pin location), mark places as "closed", and let Foursquare know about duplicate venues.
  • Superuser level 2 can edit venues, merge duplicate venue listings, adjust the latitude and longitude of a venue, remove tags, and add venue categories for any venue.
  • Superuser level 3 adds the ability to create and remove venue aliases, as well as access a "global queue" for the various SU tools, such as merge requests, mislocated venues, and suggested address changes; lower level SUs can only access the pending requests in the city they're currently listed as being in.

Privacy

In February 2010, a site known as Please Rob Me was launched.[32] Please Rob Me scrapes data from public Twitter messages that have been pushed through Foursquare.[32] The purpose of the site is to raise awareness about revealing too much information.[32]

In 2010, white hat hacker Jesper Andersen discovered a vulnerability on Foursquare that raised privacy concerns.[33][34] Foursquare's location pages display a grid of 50 pictures that is generated randomly, regardless of their privacy settings.[33] Whenever a user "checks-in" at that location, their picture is generated on that location page, even if they only want their friends to know where they are.[33] Andersen then crafted a script that collected check-in information.[33] It is estimated that Andersen collected around 875,000 check-ins.[33] Andersen contacted Foursquare about the vulnerability, and Foursquare responded by fixing their privacy settings.[34]

See also

Other Services

References

  1. ^ Saint, Nick (2010-10-16). "Foursquare Signs Up Four Millionth User". Business Insider. Retrieved 2010-10-19.
  2. ^ Washington Post: "SXSW: Foursquare Scores Despite Its Flaws"
  3. ^ Thirty-One Visionary Companies Selected as Technology Pioneers 2011
  4. ^ "Foursqure Badges Help Page". Foursquare.com. Retrieved 2010-03-12.
  5. ^ "Foursquare Help Page". Foursquare.com. Retrieved 2010-06-21.
  6. ^ "Foursquare Starts Emphasizing "Days" Rather Than "Check-Ins" With Mayor Countdowns". TechCrunch.com. Aug 26 2010. Retrieved 2010-09-13. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  7. ^ New York Times - Bits Blog: "Foursquare Seeks to Turn Nightlife Into a Game"
  8. ^ Jennifer Van Grove (2009-11-19). "Foursquare Goes Global With Launch in 50 New Cities". Mashable.com. Retrieved 2010-03-12.
  9. ^ Jan 8th Fri. "Foursquare. Everywhere". Foursquare.tumblr.com. Retrieved 2010-03-12.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  10. ^ " Foursquare Turns 1 With Half a Million Users"
  11. ^ foursquare. "Foursquare Twitter Page". Twitter.com. Retrieved 2010-03-12.
  12. ^ thenokiablog (2010-03-17). "Foursquare App for Nokia N900". thenokiablog.com. Retrieved 2010-04-08.
  13. ^ "Way to go". Waze. 2010-04-19. Retrieved 2010-05-04.
  14. ^ "Sym4Square, a Foursquare application for Symbian users".
  15. ^ "foursquare mobile". Foursquare. 2010. Retrieved 2010-07-14.
  16. ^ Wortham, Jenna (2010-02-09). "Foursquare Signs a Deal With Zagat - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com". Bits.blogs.nytimes.com. Retrieved 2010-03-12.
  17. ^ http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/12/foursquare-gets-lucky-magazine/
  18. ^ Hayes, Stephanie (2010-04-03), "Tampa man dreams up Foursquare Day", St. Petersburg Times, retrieved 2010-04-03 [dead link‍]
  19. ^ foursquare. "Foursquare Twitter Page". Twitter.com. Retrieved 2010-03-26.
  20. ^ foursquare. "Foursquare Day Page". Facebook.com. Retrieved 2010-03-26.
  21. ^ Brooks, Scott. "Scott Brooks' City Hall: Saving up for a rainy day, even when it's already pouring". unionleader.com. Retrieved 2010-04-04.
  22. ^ App of the Year: FourSquare
  23. ^ New York City Hot 125
  24. ^ Webby Award Nods Honor Twitter, foursquare, Funny or Die
  25. ^ Gowalla beats out Foursquare at the SXSW awards
  26. ^ Technology Pioneers 2011: Information Technologies and New Media
  27. ^ MG Siegler (September 20, 2010). "Foursquare 2.0 Goes Beyond The Check-In — By Reshuffling Old Features". TechCrunch.com. TechCrunch. Retrieved September 20, 2010.
  28. ^ Foursquare co-creator on privacy, Easter eggs http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10215732-2.html
  29. ^ Indvik, Lauren. "Earn Badges on Foursquare, No Checkins required". Retrieved 23 September 2010.
  30. ^ http://foursquare.com/astro_wheels/badges/4cc1a93eaa5776b0ee177644
  31. ^ http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/22/foursquare-space-astronaut
  32. ^ a b c McCarthy, Caroline (2010-02-17). "The dark side of geo: PleaseRobMe.com". CNET.com. Retrieved 2010-10-12.
  33. ^ a b c d e Singal, Ryan (2010-06-16). "White Hat Uses Foursquare Privacy Hole to Capture 875K Check-Ins". Wired News. Retrieved 2010-10-12.
  34. ^ a b Dugdale, Addy (2010-07-01). "Foursquare Checks in to Almighty Security Row, Loyalty to Users Questioned". Fast Company. Retrieved 2010-10-12.
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