Overview
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.
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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.
[4] 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.
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Foursquare started out in 2009 with limited availability in only 100 worldwide metro areas.
[6] In January 2010, Foursquare changed their location model to allow check-ins from any location worldwide.
[7] As of March 2010, the service had 500,000 users internationally.
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Foursquare currently has iPhone, Android, webOS, Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry applications.
[9] A Maemo application is in early development stage and is not featured on the Foursquare website.
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Users with Symbian phones and Pocket PCs (Windows Mobile touchscreen) can use Foursquare via Waze, which is also available for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry.
[11] 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.
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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.
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Foursquare acknowledged a grass-roots effort that started in Tampa
[15] by declaring April 16 "Foursquare Day" via both Twitter
[16] and Facebook.
[17] The city of Manchester, NH is officially declaring April 16 "Foursquare Day."
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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.
[19] Other badges may be specific to a city, venue, event, or date. Some badges utilize 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.
Superuser status
The service provides three levels of "Superuser status" (which is not to be confused with the Superuser 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.