And you heard that correctly, Foursquare teamed up with Nokia, which means that the updated app will come pre-loaded on select Lumia models, with the app optimized for Lumia devices as an added bonus, where it will work seamlessly with the line’s augmented reality technology, giving Foursquare users the ability to check in with style.

The YouTube app also received an update on Windows Phone 8, being “completely redesigned” with a handful of new features, most notably pinning support, which lets you pin videos, channels, playlists and search results right to your phone’s Start Screen. The pinning also extends to YouTube’s Kids Corners, allowing parents to easily control what their kids can and cannot view.

These updates come just after Hulu released the Hulu Plus app on Windows Phone 8 yesterday. Netflix had been in the game for over a month, so the streaming service has a lot of catching up to do on Microsoft’s platform. Then again, a lot of companies have catching up to do, as many popular apps still aren’t on Windows Phone 8 yet.

To start things off, Crowley wants to assure everyone that, despite speculation, Foursquare does have a business model that they’re following, and that they aren’t just doing things as they go. He says that the company is doing well financially and that March was actually its “biggest revenue month so far”. Many people speculated that Foursquare was struggling financially, but according to Crowley, that’s not the case.

He says that the company has been working on merchant tools, which it uses to grab “six-figure” deals with merchants across the nation. When merchants sign deals with Foursquare, Crowley says that Foursquare doesn’t charge them X amount of money based on ad impressions, but instead charges them whenever the service brings customers to their business, making their tools more appealing compared to other services.

Unfortunately, Crowley declined to mention just how well its new merchant tools, or other revenue generating methods, has done for the company. When asked how much total revenue the company was expected to make this year, Crowley told TechCrunch,

“We’re a private company, so we don’t have to disclose our master plans to you, but we’ve set ambitious goals for the year, and we’re very much on target to hit them.”

He continues to say that Foursquare’s 4 original investors are all “back in” with the company, and that the numbers are starting to come together, with monthly users, check-ins, and sign-ups all increasing by up to 10-30% this year. Crowley knows that Foursquare isn’t the “shiny new thing anymore”, but he believes that it is doing better than ever.

[via TechCrunch]

The infographic comes with four different view modes, with all check-ins being separated by category in different colors. The first one shows check-ins by the time of year (pictured above), the second one shows your check-ins strictly based on category, the third one is based on connections between check-ins (providing a nifty circle with a web in the middle), and the last one is a randomized view that’s merely nothing but something fun to look at.

4sqDay was actually started by an optometrist in Tampa, Florida who also happened to be a social media enthusiast. He was obsessed with numbers, including the connection with Pi Day and it’s celebratory date of March 14 (3.14 is pi, by the way). He cleverly thought that April 16 would be a good day to celebrate Foursquare, since “4 squared” equals 16.

After promoting the idea on the internet, Foursquare picked it up and eventually made it official. Of course, some people celebrate the day with parties, but if you’re not much of a party goer or can’t make it to a party of some kind, you can simply check in at an establishment to earn the 4sqDay badge.

The app puts more emphasize on Search as well, allowing you to quickly find an establishment, or browse places that are trending and popular in your area. The map area is also easily expandable, allowing you to see where nearby Foursquare friends are located, as well as explore interesting and places using the map view.

The app also received a couple of design modifications, most notably the relocation of the Check-In button, which is now placed at the bottom of the screen, and it stays static even when you scroll through the app. Tapping on it will let you check into a place just like normal — that aspect of the app hasn’t changed.

In place of where the Check-In button used to be is now where notifications exist. It’s a larger button this time around, allowing you to easily check any notifications that have come in. Overall, the recommendations engine is the big kicker here. The system uses the time of day, how familiar you are with the neighborhood, and places that are currently popular to give you relevant places that you might want to check out. Foursquare is a free download and the update is available now in iTunes.

To make checking in faster, all you have to do is press the check-in button at the top-right to bring up a list of places that are nearby. When you see the place that you’re currently at, just tap and hold on it to complete the check-in process — simple and quick! This is also great if you just want to check in, rather than also adding a photo or a status. The old way of checking in will still work, though.

Foursquare also guesses the place that you’re at by lowering down a blue bar that you can tap to check in. You can also tap and hold on the bar to quickly check in, making it literally a one-tap process. Plus, Foursquare is usually good at guessing the place that you’re at based on your GPS location, so checking in should be a super quick process now.

This has been a much-needed feature for Foursquare power users, and while it doesn’t take a lot of time to check in the old-fashioned way, any new way that’s quicker than before is always welcomed. Foursquare has been updating its mobile apps quite frequently lately, and we should expect the same kind of attention from them in the future if they want to keep users happy.

All the best parts about the feature haven’t changed, however, so loyal users don’t have to worry about unfavorable changes. Location data, such as ratings, friend visits, specials, and tips are all still displayed. Tapping through a specific location will then provide additional data, such as instructions on how to get there and, in the case of restaurants, menu information.

In order to facilitate the additional locations displayed, the Explore feature has been redesigned, which will be obvious to anyone who has used the previous version of the app. The most-recommended locations will be displayed at the top, and new locations will be highlighted so you don’t miss them, and information about trends will also be provided.

All the other features are there as well, such as the ability to check in to locations and remember the ones you like. Personalized recommendations are provided as well, providing a more personal experience. Foursquare users can grab the updated app over at the App Store; it’s available for iOS 5.5 and later, and is compatible with the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.

[via Foursquare]

The heat map that Foursquare provided shows where all of the 1 million check-ins have occurred, and as you can see, many of them were sent from the runway, proving that no one actually pays attention to flight attendants who tell you to keep your phone off until the plane has reached the gate — no one.

On top of the 1 million check-ins, the Atlanta Airport also has over 2,000 tips under its name, providing travelers with essential information for when they’re stuck at the airport during a layover. Foursquare also discovered that, on average, Monday is the airport’s busiest day for travel, and Terminal B sees the most traffic, according to check-in data.

Foursquare also notes that the One Flew South restaurant in the Atlanta Airport has more check-ins more than any other in-airport restaurant, and it also has the highest rating as well. Plus, the permanent collection of sculptures from Zimbabwe inside the airport also seem to be a big hit with travelers looking to kill time.

While there are a ton of similar lists floating around the internet, Foursquare’s lists are quite unique, and the company says that while other sites’ lists are based upon the editors’ opinions or food critics, Foursquare rounds up the billions of check-ins that they have to see what the most popular places are in town.

The company uses tips, likes, dislikes, popularity, local expertise, and nearly three billion check-ins from over 30 million people around the world to determine how popular and good a certain place is. However, Foursquare has only made Best Of lists for a handful of cities in the US, including Chicago, Boston, New York, San Francisco, and more.

What’s perhaps most interesting about these lists, is that Foursquare discovered that certain cities have unique tastes in food: “Bostonians love seafood, Portland is a veggie paradise, and Philly may be the city of brotherly love, but what they really love is a good sandwich.” Clicking on a city reveals the best restaurants in the area, as well as the best nightlife destinations, and attractions.

Foursquare will even send you a notification whenever someone outside of your Foursquare friend zone likes one of your check-ins. However, these can easily be turned off in the settings if you don’t want your email to get bombarded with pesky notifications — we can’t blame you for not wanting to “know how awesome you are” (Foursquare’s words).

Of course, this dips just ever so slightly into privacy concerns, and the fact that non-friends on Foursquare are able to like your check-ins and statuses, but we’re guessing that since these are people who are your friends on Facebook and Twitter, most users won’t really have a problem with it.

Foursquare recently made some privacy tweaks following the Instagram debacle last month. Foursquare made some changes to their privacy policy, which now says that the service will display users’ full names and giving businesses more customer data by default, though Foursquare points out that extra privacy can be restored with a few settings tweaks.

According to Foursquare, the key changes – which will come into effect on January 28 2013 – are to how accessible your data is, both publicly visible and to businesses you check into. Whereas currently a mixture of full names and first names and last initials are used, the new default will be to show first and last names consistently; that, the company says, is to address complaints that the existing approach is “confusing” and makes finding the right person in search results tricky.

As for businesses, the amount of data they see on each customer will not change, but they will get data for a longer period. Currently, Foursquare shows check-in activity for the most recent three hour period; that’s being increased to cater to those businesses who might sift through the results less frequently than that:

“Currently, a business using Foursquare (like your corner coffee shop) can see the customers who have checked in in the last three hours (in addition to the most recent and their most loyal visitors). This is great for helping store owners identify their customers and give them more personal service or offers. But a lot of businesses only have time to log in at the end of the day to look at it. So, with this change, we’re going to be showing them more of those recent check-ins, instead of just three hours worth” Foursquare

Wary of a sharing backlash, Foursquare is eager to highlight what privacy settings and options users have to play with. Although the company will soon show full names by default, it only requires a first name for registration; you can change what your “full name” is in the settings.

Meanwhile, there’s an option in the “Location Information” section which allows users to turn off the ability of businesses to see when they check into their locations. There are also Private Check-Ins, which hide the data from everyone, including both friends and businesses on an ad-hoc basis.

Foursquare’s more straightforward Privacy 101 page sits alongside the official Privacy Policy, which can be a little tougher going if you’re not legally minded. Still, the company has done a solid job of trying to dress its changes in clarity, though as ever it makes sense to take some time to sift through the available settings to make sure Foursquare’s defaults match your own expectations of the service.

[Thanks Colin!]

A new video takes a few guesses as to what the highly anticipated Galaxy S IV will look like and what kind of features it’ll have, and a new concept from Hyundai will have users taking advantage of NFC to lock and unlock their vehicles. Federal regulators are pushing for black boxes in cars made after September 2014, and Toshiba has pulled the veil off a new 20-megapixel sensor for a point-and-shoot camera. We heard today that Game of Thrones and Project X were among the most pirated products in 2012, and Samsung told us how its Galaxy line has been performing in India.

Apple CEO Tim Cook took a 99% pay cut this year, while Samsung was busy dishing new details on its Premium Suite and the Android 4.1 update for the original Galaxy Note. Apple and Intel are rumored to be working on iWatch and targeting a 2013 release, and Mercedes-Benz released promotional images for the 2014 CLA-class early. We were told that crime in New York City is up for the first time in 20 years thanks to iDevice hype, while Microsoft doubled the number of apps on the Windows Phone market in 2012. If you’re in the giving mood, you might want to support Extra Lives’ Pokethon III, but if you’ve got some cash burning a hole in your pocket, Xbox Live’s Borderlands 2 sale isn’t a bad idea either.

OUYA developer consoles started shipping today, the Sony ODIN has been tipped to hit the market as the Xperia X, and Foursquare and NASA have launched a new Curiosity Explorer badge. Microsoft said today it isn’t all that worried about Google stealing its Office thunder, and Windows RT has been ported to the HTC HD2. Finally tonight, Chris Burns delivers his review of the Spigen SGP SGP10091 Armor Slim Case for the iPhone 5. That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, we hope you enjoy the rest of your night folks!

To earn the new Curiosity Explorer badge, users must “like” NASA on Foursquare and check in at a NASA visitor center or other venue categorized as a science museum or planetarium. The launch of the badge follows the October check-in on Mars by NASA’s Curiosity rover, which marked the first check-in on another planet.

This isn’t the first time that NASA has been involved with Foursquare, though. NASA has been a member on Foursquare since 2010, thanks to a strategic partnership with the service. The partnership launched with astronaut Doug Wheelock’s first-ever check-in from the International Space Station, and it has allowed users to connect with NASA.

This also isn’t the first time that NASA has its own badge. The now-expired NASA Explorer badge encouraged users to explore NASA-related locations across the country, and it also included the launch of a NASA Foursquare page, where the organization continues to provide official tips and information about the space program.

The new additions to the Foursquare UI show up as discrete “X Facebook friends liked this place” and “Your Facebook friend Z left a tip here” messages. There are also profile icons of those friends who have checked-in.

However, Foursquare is keen to point out that your own check-ins won’t be publicized any more than they are already; Facebook friends will only see your updates from Foursquare if they’re friends in both services. In addition to showing up in the Foursquare apps for iPhone and Android, the new Facebook integration has also been baked into Foursquare on the web.

Foursquare added the “Explore” tab to its apps earlier this year, expanding what had until then been a predominantly location-reporting service into something which could recommend new places to visit. That extra data could well be the cause of interest from Apple; the Cupertino giant is rumored to be weighing a deal that would see Foursquare information baked into Apple Maps so as to make it more competitive with Google Maps.

Speculation that Apple was keen on working with Foursquare in some capacity began earlier this month, when Cue began using the service to check-in to locations via his Twitter account. Some suggested Apple might attempt to acquire Foursquare entirely, but the whispers from those familiar with the discussions seems to indicate that it would simply be a case of data sharing.

That would follow Apple’s agreements with other well-known third-party services to bolster iOS and OS X. For instance, deals with Twitter and Facebook have seen those social sites embedded into Apple’s platforms for mobile and desktop.

Although Apple Maps was praised for its interface when it debuted with iOS 6, users quickly discovered glaring errors in the mapping data itself. While geographical issues gained the most attention – leaving some drivers stranded after too closely following incorrect navigation instructions, for instance – the points-of-interest database and details of local businesses also proved patchy, sometimes including companies and locations that had shut down several years before.

An agreement with Foursquare would not only help Apple keep that location database more up to date, it could also be used to build upon Apple’s fledgling location-based services, such as Find My Friends. Apple Maps could suggest possible places to meet based on mutual location and preferences, using Foursquare reviews to highlight the more popular venues.

The new version comes with a redesigned camera that integrates with the iOS camera roll, which makes it cleaner and faster to add photos that you’ve already shot to Instagram. There’s also new optional grid guides that you can enable when shooting photos, as well as a permanent grid on the scaling and cropping screen.

Another major new addition is the integration of Foursquare data. For now on, location pages will have a Foursquare button that can open either the app or a mobile web version with details about the location. It’s definitely a welcomed featured, especially considering Instagram’s Photo Map made locations an important part of the experience.

Lastly, there’s improved tilt-shift functionality and also a new filter called “Willow” that’s making its way to Android as well. The update is rolling out now to the iTunes App Store, as well as the Google Play store for the Android version. We’re currently not seeing the updates, so if you’re experiencing the same, it looks like you’ll have to be patient for a little bit.

The new features for Foursquare on iOS include check-in highlights and a revamped check-in screen, as well as a feature allowing users to more rapidly find places nearby that have been recently opened. For example, users can scan through check-in highlights under friends’ check-ins. The changes aren’t huge, but are certainly something advid users will notice and appreciate.

In what is perhaps the most strange “What’s New” version update on iTunes, Foursquare offers this: “Are we not drawn onward to new era? A man, a plan, a canal, Panama! Look out for check-in highlights under your friends’ check-ins. Go hang a salami; I’m a lasagna hog! Try some recently opened places nearby. Race car! Enjoy speedier check-ins, plus a shiny new check-in screen. So many dynamos! Search for ‘peppermint’ or ‘cider’ for some holiday treats!”

Obviously, you can nab the latest update from iTunes or the App Store. It’s 12MB in size, and requires iOS 5.0 or higher. For those who like random – and relatively obscure – facts, Foursquare also noted that this update, version 5.3.5, is the first palindromic version number since April 2011′s 3.0.3. And now you know.

[via The Next Web]

That feature will help Foursquare compete with other recommendation services such as Yelp. Along with those more obvious updates also came an update that some people might have overlooked. Foursquare now allows users to mention friends who are users of Foursquare themselves. Previously, you could only mention people in your check-ins who had an account with the service.

To use the feature you have to tap the add friend icon when you’re on the check in screen and then scroll down to find the. The feature sends your friend a notification via Facebook and that allows you to tag him in a Facebook notification post if you want. That might not seem like such a big deal on the surface.

However, it signals a move by Foursquare to use word-of-mouth marketing to expand its members. If Facebook users who aren’t on Foursquare receive lots of tags from friends who are using Foursquare, the odds of people joining are significantly higher. The latest update adding the new friend tagging feature is on iOS only now, but is said to be coming to Android users too.

[via TheNextWeb]

NASA is using foursquare to check in with the Curiosity Rover as it cruises around Gale Crater on Mars. NASA’s Curiosity rover checked-in from the surface of Mars, using the mobile application foursquare, marking the services first check-in from another planet. Curiosity checked-in about 16 hours ago with a black-and-white photograph showing its shadow on the surface of the red planet.

NASA says that it is using foursquare as a tool to share the rover’s new location as it explores Mars. NASA believes that using foursquare will help involve the public with the mission and allow people to keep track of where exactly the Rover is during its 23-month mission. Curiosity is currently heading towards Mount Sharp, which is a mountain that is about 3 miles tall.

Along the way, Curiosity is conducting experiments and looking for clues locked inside soil samples and rocks to indicate whether or not Mars could have harbored life at one time. NASA has used foursquare as a tool to keep the public interested in space missions for a while. Previously, NASA facilitated the first check in using foursquare from the orbiting international space station.

The biggest improvement Foursquare made to the user interface is the slight redesign of the Explore tab. It now has a simpler design and even more search options. Because Foursquare knows what you and your friends like and knows what’s popular in the neighborhood, they can provide you with tailored suggestions instead of seeing a bunch of random search results.

They have also added new search categories that are personalized. Foursquare can provide top picks or show only places that have Foursquare specials. You can also easily access places that you’ve saved. Moreso, the app can show you places that you haven’t been to yet or even only places that you’ve been to or your friends have been to.

Foursquare for iOS is a free download and the update is available now in the iTunes App Store. A recent update does appear to be available on Android as well, but it doesn’t look like the new personalization features have hit yet, but we can only guess it’ll be a matter of time.

[via Foursquare]

“Anything that shows up is using all the algorithms and magic that power Explore” product manager Noah Weiss told Venturebeat, dispelling suggestions that the promoted listings would simply be dumb ads. “This isn’t a display ad for an upcoming summer movie. This is: ‘hey, we think you might really want to go to Hertz because you just landed at the airport.”

In order to make the most of Promoted Updates, Foursquare will need to continue driving users to the Explore tab. That has apparently been on the rise anyway since the June app refresh, with twice as many place searches since then according to Weiss.

All of the Promoted Updates will be clearly marked “promoted” and there are apparently rules in place to limit how many such listings will be shown in any one session. Only twenty participants will be included in the pilot, including Best Buy, Butter Lane, Old Navy, Walgreens and The Standard Miami.

As well as seeing how well users take to the system, Foursquare will also be using the test to figure out what a reasonable charge for advertisers might be. After that, the company intends to launch a self-service platform which would allow businesses to create their own listings.

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When it’s time for lunch, you’ll be shown some lovely locations to eat right near you as recommended by Foursquare citizens who have been there – or at least who have said they’ve been there. You get updates now in that familiar red speech bubble that you cannot resist when your friends like or comment on what you’ve just done, and your feed of friends is still the central point for keeping up in the greater Foursquare check-in world.

Foursquare has become more about locations that already exist and are verified rather than on you creating your own uniquely named locations. The app is now a much more solid and “professional” environment where it’s not so much a hobby as it is an adventure where Foursquare and the businesses that work with Foursquare can profit from your fun and enjoyment. Of course that’s never a bad thing, and allows the app economy as well as the non-digital economy to thrive as well, but it is a fact.

You’ll still be collecting badges, tips are still here, photos and lists and statistics are here as well, and you will still have essentially every ability you had in the past as per normal. This application also remains completely free and utterly intoxicating – and for now you’ll not be able to get it for your iPad, but for iOS as well as Android you’ll have full free rein. Grab this application on the iTunes App Store or over in the Google Play App Store right this second!

The new Foursquare app makes it easier for users to access photos, list, and places, and the check-in button itself has been made more easily accessible in the top right corner. The big new feature is the Explore button, placed front and center in the bottom row of options. Hit the button and you’ll be presented with a map, telling you where your friends are and recommending places for you to visit.

Friends has also been revamped, presenting a slicker timeline of where your pals have checked into, with large pictures and clean fonts. The final tab is dedicated to your profile, saving information about where you’ve checked in and allowing you to access your favourite places. Other info such as stats and badges will also be accessible here.

[via The Next Web]

“Our initial public offering added $114 million to our balance sheet, adding strength to our financial foundation as we look to continue investing in our rapid growth,” said Yelp chief financial officer Rob Krolik in a statement. The site boasts more than 25 million reviews of local businesses, most of which are attributed to restaurants, though Yelp markets itself as a destination for reviews of all kinds of local businesses.

As such, it partly competes with Angie’s List, a premium service that reviews private contractors like painters and doctors. But Yelp’s huge grasp on the local restaurant market, and its ability to bleed into these other areas managed to help its net revenue rise 66% to $27.4 million. The quarterly revenue was a very good sign for Yelp, which posted a net loss in the first quarter of the year. The company continues to battle against other, more prominent social networks like Foursquare and Facebook.

[via Reuters]

The Blackberry app update also provides some requisite enhancements like faster performance and more accurate GPS location identifying. But NFC is really what it’s all about. “You can share places and tips among other BlackBerry and Android devices (or even check in at places with NFC stickers), with a simple tap of your phone,” Foursquare wrote in an official blog post about the new update.

Both the Blackberry Bold 9900 and the Curve 9370 have NFC technology built into their hardware. With the feature, users are able to exchange data – venue profiles, user data, tips, and lists – with a simple tap. That is, of course, provided both users have a compatible NFC device. Nevertheless, it is always nice to see NFC expanded beyond mobile payments, which is what it has become primarily associated with. The update is available now in the Blackberry App World store.

[via VentureBeat]

This application works with user data that was until this week already available to the user using the app, utilizing this data to provide a map of their surrounding area based on GPS check-ins of friends and associates of theirs. Foursquare has objected to this use of data noting that i-Free would have had to and should have asked for permission to use such data before allowing 70,000 users to download the app from the iTunes App Store. In a statement given to WSJ on the subject, developers at i-Free noted the following:

“We see this wave of negative as a serious misunderstanding of the apps’ goals, purpose, abilities and restrictions. Girls Around Me does not provide any data that is unavailable to user when he uses his or her social network account, nor does it reveal any data that users did not share with others.” – i-Free

The developer has also noted that they’re still going to continue developing the application, with a re-release coming out with only data provided at “public venues” so that Foursquare will re-allow them permission to use data. They’ve also stated that they’re working on an Android version of the app for release this year.

[via BBC]

OpenStreetMap is run by the non-profit OpenStreetMap Foundation and works like Wikipedia with all the mapping data provided by volunteers. There have already been half a million volunteers providing mapping data to the service, which can be used by both consumers and businesses for free.

But what really helped spur the growth of OpenStreetMap is Microsoft. The software giant has reportedly donated valuable map data along with big dollars to the non-profit. It also uses OpenStreetMap data for its own Bing Maps service.

Back in November 2010, Microsoft even hired back OpenStreetMap founder Steve Coast to work as Principal Architect for Bing Mobile, allowing him to work on both Bing and OpenStreetMap. Coast is now working on developing open-source software that will make it easier for developers to get data from OpenStreetMap.

[via PC World]

I check into places I have not been. Sometimes, those places are far away from where I’m sitting. Before I ever visited Good 2 Go Taco, I checked in there on Foursquare. I was more than 10 miles away at the time. I did it to needle my boss, who was mayor of the joint at the time. I was threatening to steal all of his mayorships from him, and I knew that Good 2 Go was his most prized mayoral possession.

[Image credit: Nan Palmero]

A few days earlier, I had created a Foursquare location specifically for his office. Then I checked in. He checked in second. The way Foursquare works, if I checked in every day at that point, before he had the chance, I would quickly become mayor and hold that position indefinitely. I usually arrive at work before he does. I was mayor on day two, and held the title for a week or so, until a business trip took me away from my realm.

Sometimes I check into places long after I’ve left. Sometimes I check in before I arrive. Sometimes I check into a place that’s nearby, usually within sight, even though I won’t be going there. When I was in Amsterdam, I checked into a cookie shop across the street from the place I had stopped to get coffee. People can take a check-in to a coffee spot in Amsterdam the wrong way, so I thought it safer to mark my position using the cookie shop. I was mayor of that cookie shop for three months, even though I was only in Amsterdam a week. Apparently, Foursquare is not very popular in the Netherlands. Or maybe the cookies weren’t as good as they looked.

Why do I cheat? A couple reasons. First of all, Foursquare deserves a little cheating. The company, and the service, needs to get its act together. Some of my cheating is my own passive aggressive way of pointing out the obvious flaws in the system.

The distance checks are completely unreliable. Early on, the Foursquare phone app started using GPS or other location information to verify that you were near your check-in spot. But I’ve been denied plenty of legitimate check-ins because the app was gathering the wrong data. It wasn’t the phone’s fault. Google Maps found me with no trouble. But Foursquare thought I was too far away from Whole Foods to earn a check in.

So, I exploit that. Sometimes the app seems to forget to check your distance. This is how I managed a check in at a taco shop more than 10 miles away. I just searched for the location and tried to check in. A few times, it worked. A few other times, it did not.

Foursquare is also in serious need of some curation. I decided I wanted to become the mayor of my apartment complex. But when I started checking in, I found four or five listings for the same address. All of them had different mayors, even though they all pointed to the same address.

Pro Tip: Don’t really check into your home or building on Foursquare. There are obvious safety implications in telling people when and where you will and won’t be at a given time. I check into the apartment complex next door, and count that as a check in for my pad. When I lived in a house, I created a location with a nearby address. Close enough that Foursquare would find it, but not close enough that psychopaths would find me.

Foursquare also needs better recognition of the categories of the places you check in. I checked into a maritime museum and earned the coveted “I’m On A Boat!” badge. Then, when I actually checked in from a boat for the first time, there was no reward. It was a completely anti-climactic Foursquare experience.

I’d also like to know how many check-ins it really takes to become mayor, and how that works. I checked into a lunch spot in San Francisco two days in a row and became mayor. How could that be? It’s a very popular place (Gott’s Roadside). I can’t imagine my two consecutive visits earned me the mayor spot. Less than a week after I left San Francisco, I was replaced, but that’s only surprising that I held the title so long.

Nitpicking? Sure, but the confusion that Foursquare creates about the rules, and the inconsistency in their application, makes the game much less fun. And it is certainly a game.

So, I started to think about what I really wanted out of this game. Which brings me to the second reason I cheat. I don’t really care about winning at Foursquare. I just want to make myself seem more tech savvy than my luddite friends, who dabble in the game but can’t quite keep up. I want to use Foursquare as a power play in my own pathetic social life. I want to use it to rib and needle, to tease and brag. I like to mark my spots in a strange city so local friends can find me and distant friends can make recommendations. But most of all, I play the game my own way.

I certainly don’t feel bad about cheating. This isn’t Words With Friends, after all. I can’t tolerate cheating in Words With Friends. My friends think I’m a formidable player at Words With Friends because I used to be an English teacher, but my Scrabble skills are surprisingly mediocre. But what skill I do have is knowing exactly what vocabulary words someone does or does not know. After years of reading essays from 14 year olds cribbed directly from Wikipedia, I have a great idea of whether you really know what a Qat is, or whether you’re just randomly placing tiles.

The same folks who cheat at Words With Friends are the ones now beating me at Foursquare. Not because they’ve been taking trips to fascinating locations or racking up mayorships left and right. No, these are the folks who check in at the gas station, and the ATM machine, and McDonald’s, and their bathroom, and everywhere else they pause for even the slightest moment. The folks who earn astronomical Foursquare scores by marking their place at the most mundane spots in their lives. To me, those are the folks who are ruining my game. But I’m a cheater, so what do I know?

Foursquare, of course, is gaining a lot of traction and popularity. It has some competition but for the most part Foursquare is its own animal. The problem is that it faces competition from things like Scoutmob and Groupon in terms of local deals, and from Facebook and Twitter when it comes to actual social interaction. Foursquare is trying to find its specific voice in this world of a million social startups.

The other problem is that people may find something on Foursquare and then look up the location on Yelp, or some other third party. Foursquare wants to be the only service you use, so the addition of business hours helps it be more than just something you open up to click “check in” and then close. It’s hoping to be a destination for you to find nearby places, with all the information you need to check it out.

[via VentureBeat]

So here’s how it works – you take out your iPhone at your favorite sports arena or whatever venue it happens to be, and by pointing the camera at various locations throughout the venue, you’ll see posts and comments made by other users who are there.
The app is called Wallit, and the CEO of the namesake company Veysel Berk was quoted as summing up the experience by saying, “We are trying to socialize augmented reality experiences.” He said, “With location at the center of our system, augmented reaity is just the natural extension of that.”

Essentially, it’s like Foursquare but with the social aspect taken to a much larger degree. Foursquare lets users boast about where they are to friends who are somewhere else, while Wallit wants you to show where you are, to other people who are at the same place. The company says it has already created virtual walls in venues throughout New York City, San Francisco, and Paris, and is continuing to build more. It has received more than $1 million in venture capital.

[via VentureBeat]

As foursquare puts it, other than slightly different colors and buttons it’s still the same service you have been using. Since foursquare started it had been using Google Maps API. The company says it noted a number of other firms going away from that option. However, it’s not using the plain old OpenStreetMap data for the map images it needs.

The map images foursquare is using come from a startup called MapBox. This company was chosen because they have slick images, which is exactly what foursquare needed, that are based on OpenStreetMap data. MapBox launched a new service called MapBox Streets earlier this week so foursquare moved over. If you’re a foursquare user, do you like the new maps?

Around 350,000 people around the country remembered to log into their Foursquare account while they were still sober and check in to a Super Bowl event. Nearly 3,000 Foursquare users checked in from the stadium in Indianapolis itself. Aside from that, as can be expected, there was an enormous cluster all along the northeast coast, stretching from well below New York all the way up through New England. But even areas that didn’t have a dog in the fight still reveled in the partying atmosphere that the Super Bowl always brings.

Oh, and here’s a surprising stat – according to Foursquare, 49% of the people who checked in at a Super Bowl even were women, quashing two stereotypes at once and proving women are technologically up to speed and also like sports. Or, at least they have a boyfriend who likes sports and while they were bored they decided to log into Foursquare. Yeah, let’s go with that one. And beyond the US, Foursquare noted that there were “Super Bowl” check-ins in 117 countries including Iran, Afghanistan, Macedonia, Russia, and Japan.

[via Wired]

The buttons have to be implemented by the people that operate websites that you visit before you can use them. The Save to Foursquare button for instance allows the user to save stories and reviews of items or places to their foursquare to-do list. The save button presents the content back to the user on their account at Foursquare with the branding of the site it was saved from.

The foursquare buttons are implemented on some sites online already thanks to launch partners. Those partners include Frommer’s Travel, Eater.com, New York Magazine, and several other popular websites around the web. Perhaps the largest of the launch partner sites is CBS. The follow button allows the Foursquare user to follow a person or a website from their account.

[via LA Times]

In collaboration with Microsoft, the company has rebuilt the app that is now faster and easier to use. This new version 2.0 of the Foursquare app for Windows Phone 7 includes many of the new features that Foursquare introduced recently but delivered over a slick new interface.

The new design also better matches Microsoft’s Metro styling and takes full advantage of the panoramic UI. It also adds a new LiveTile and a feature that lets you view a map of nearby specials or specials near where your friends are checked-in. Foursquare for Windows Phone app version 2.0 is free and available for download now at the Windows Phone Marketplace.

[via MobileBurn]

The popular location-based social check-in service Foursquare had said it was experiencing some issues but seems to be back up and running. “Our usually amazing data center hosts, Amazon EC2, are having a few hiccups this morning, which affected us and a bunch of other services that use them,” read a message posted on Foursquare’s homepage. The message later said “everything looking to be getting back to normal now.” This seemed to be the case for Reddit as well. However, Quora, as of this writing, is still down.

Cloud computing involves the storage and sharing of data on the internet or on external servers. And in the case of Amazon’s cloud service, they’ve got a huge collection of computing power in web-connected data centers throughout the world and have become an integral part as outsourced infrastructure for businesses, especially startups. And so, although an incident like this remind us of the vulnerabilities with this type of computing, it also makes us realize that there are few alternatives to this model as companies continue to jump on the cloud for storage and web services.

[via VentureBeat]

This is where the swinging starts. We know from Electronista that the co-founder of FourSquare, Dennis Crowley, was on the Apple campus in Cupertino yesterday for a meeting. Apparently, along with Crowley was the business developments and partnerships head Holger Luedof along with public relations manager Erin Gleason. The trio was in the area for the Where 2.0 conference. What we don’t know is what they folks were there for. However, the visit raises some interesting prospects with rumors of a new Apple cloud service running rampant and a change for MobileMe nearing.

This meeting could have been nothing more than a friendly visit to talk to pals, though why Crowley would need his corporate strongmen (and women) to visit pals is questionable. However, it could have been a meeting that would see FourSquare providing local search services for MobileMe on Apple devices. If that is an accurate assumption, it could well explain why the Facebook integration on the leaked video mentioned before never came to be. Apple wouldn’t need Facebook Places for instance if it had FourSquare in the MobileMe fold.

[via Near Field Communications World]

A new ‘Explore’ tab has been added that will help you discover new places nearby. It will recommend locations based on your search patterns, the places you’ve visited, the places your friends have visited, your loyalty to your favorite places, and the general categories you gravitate towards among various other factors.

A revamped leaderboard now shows a 7-day barometer of you and your friends. Check-ins will now trigger dozens of different actions including discovering new places, trying new restaurants, and visiting new cities. And to reward your loyalty, six new types of deals will be available for businesses to offer. Businesses will be able to offer Specials to swarms, groups of friends, regulars, newbies, Mayors, or simply everyone.

The Foursquare 3.0 version will be available tonight for iOS and Android devices. The 3.0 version for BlackBerry will be later on this week.

[via Foursquare]

Instead of having to sign-in to each of the social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to post tweets or status updates, you can use HootSuite to manage all your social media activities. With HootSuite, you can manage your LinkedIn, Foursquare, Facebook, and Twitter accounts all in one place.

New features for the updated HootSuite include:
- LinkedIn: you can now add or import your account to view news updates and profiles
- Foursquare: you can receive comments on check-ins from your friends
- Facebook: you can now add pages directly from your phone, view events, and search
- Twitter: You can favorite streams or individual messages; choose recently-replied to contacts and see friendship status; reply-all for tweets; create and manage lists

[via HootSuite]

An update to the history pages online pulls together all the comments and photos into a single place. If you use Instagram or Foodspotting, pictures will be included with the check-ins, while picplz supports photos checked-in to both iPhone and Android.

Meanwhile, an update to the Foursquare Android app is expected later this week, with Palm and BlackBerry versions due in January 2011 and other “major platforms” after that. Meanwhile the iPhone app will get updates to streamline sharing photos to Facebook and Flickr, an easier way to keep track of comments, and improved organization of old photos.