1.

History of foursquare
Launch[edit]
Foursquare started out in 2009 in 100 worldwide metro areas.[33] In January 2010, Foursquare
changed their location model to allow check-ins from any location worldwide.[34] On February 21,
2011 Foursquare reached 7 million users IDs.[35] On August 8, 2011 President Barack
Obama joined Foursquare, with the intention that the staff at the White House would use the
service to post tips from places the president has visited.[36]
In September 2010 Foursquare announced version 2.0 of its check-in app which would help 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, was separated from the general
advice from other users section called "tips". Foursquare has also created a button that would add
any location in the app to a user's to-do list, and the app would now remind the user when there
were to-do items nearby. Around this time, third party sites such as The New York Times, Wall
Street Journal, and Zagat added an "Add to My foursquare" button, which would add a location to
the user's to-do list.[37]
The company was expected to pass 750 million check-ins before the end of June 2011, with an
average of about 3 million check-ins per day.
Foursquare 4.0 was released for the iPhone on the morning of October 12, 2011, with other
platforms following after. The update added a new feature called "Radar", powered by
Foursquare's "Explore" algorithm. Radar is able to notify the user, for example, when they are
close to a place that's either on their to-do list or another list they follow or when three or more
friends have checked into a nearby venue.
2012 redesign[edit]
On June 7, 2012, Foursquare launched a major redesign, which they described as a "whole new
app". The app's "explore" function will now allow users to browse locations by category or
conduct a specific search like "free wi-fi" or "dumplings".[38] Foursquare incorporated features
from social discovery[39] and local search applications, as well as the "like" feature made famous
by Facebook.
In November 2012, Foursquare announced an update to their iOS mobile app that would
showcase a ratings system to locations on a one to ten scale. The ratings will be based on tips,
dislikes and ratings from previous check-ins. This update was intended to compete with other
location services like Yelp.[40] Foursquare announced another update to their iOS mobile app,
allowing users to check in to a location with Facebook friends who do not use the service
themselves,[41] and a further update adding a "Recently Opened" feature to its iOS app, allowing
users to find newly opened locations in their areas.[42]
Swarm[edit]
In May 2014, the company launched Swarm, a companion app to Foursquare, that moved the
social networking and location sharing aspects of the service to a separate application. On August
7, 2014 the company launched Foursquare 8.0, the completely new version of the service which
finally removed the check in and location sharing entirely, to focus entirely on local search.

Foursquare is a technology company that uses location intelligence to build meaningful consumer
experiences and business solutions. We have two mobile apps: Foursquare and Swarm, and a suite of
enterprise and advertising tools.
For consumers, we believe the world is full of amazing experiences. We make two apps to help guide you
to them: Foursquare and Swarm.
The Foursquare app helps you discover new places, with recommendations from a community you trust.
Find a better experience, anywhere in the world.

Checking in on Swarm makes a game of life: score every day with real-world perks and bragging rights,
like being crowned the mayor. Stay connected to your inner explorer, be truly aware of life’s journey, and
have more fun along the way. Live your life more checked in.
For brands, Foursquare provides advertisers ways to connect with audiences that love the things they
offer, in the real world. Pinpoint optimizes ad analytics, targeting and measurement, and is the only
programmatic platform that has the first-party location data to ensure accuracy and quality.
For developers and enterprises, Foursquare offers hosted technology and data to build context-smart,
location-aware apps, and nearly 100,000 developers rely on Foursquare tech, including Apple, Twitter,
Pinterest, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and others. For enterprises and analysts, Foursquare offers our Place
Insights product, which informs business decisions with the world’s largest dynamic panel of global foot
traffic data.
We're proud to be funded by Union Square Ventures, Morgan Stanley, Andreessen Horowitz, Spark
Capital, DFJ Growth, O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, SMALLCAP World Fund, Silver Lake Waterman,
Microsoft, and a handful of angel investors.

By the numbers:
Community: More than 50 million people use Foursquare and Swarm each month, across desktop,
mobile web, and mobile apps. People have checked in more than 8 billion times worldwide.
Platform: More than 65 million place shapes mapping businesses around the world.
Employees: More than 180 people between headquarters in New York, an office in San Francisco, and
teams in London and Chicago.

2. The unique features

3. features
a. 1.1Local search and recommendations
b. 1.2Tips and expertise
c. 1.3Tastes
d. 1.4Location detection
e. 1.5Ratings
f. 1.6Lists
g. 1.7Former features
4. 2Swarm
5. 3Other features
a. 3.1Foursquare for business
b. 3.2Foursquare API
c. 3.3Super Users
d. 3.4Brands
e. 3.5Specials
f. 3.6Cross-site linking
6. 4Availability
 a. 4.1Foursquare 8.0
i. 4.1.1Other versions
b. 4.2Foursquare for Business
Local search and recommendations[edit]
Foursquare lets the user search for restaurants, nightlife spots, shops and other places of interest in their
surrounding area. It is also possible to search other areas by entering the name of a remote location. The
app displays personalised recommendations based on the time of day, displaying breakfast places in the
morning, dinner places in the evening etc. Recommendations are personalised based on factors that
include a users check-in history, their "Tastes" and their venue ratings and according to their friends
reviews.
Tips and expertise[edit]
Foursquare eschews the traditional concept of letting users leave long-form reviews, and instead
encourages the writing of "Tips" - short messages about a location which let other users know what is
good (or bad) there. Tips are limited to 200 characters in length, but can include a URL to link to an
external site with more information, and can include a photo. Tips can be set to expire after a certain
amount of time, or on a specific date, which can be useful for leaving Tips about events or promotions at
a venue that will end soon.
Users have the ability to 'Like' tips left by other users, which makes those tips more prominent. Users can
also save tips left by other users onto their own to do list, ensuring that the user is reminded about them
when they are nearby, and can "follow" any other user or brand to increase the prominence of that user's
tips when they are navigating Foursquare. As a reward for leaving quality tips, a user can also earn
"expertise" in a particular location (e.g. a neighbourhood or city) or category (e.g. Italian restaurants).
Expertise is awarded based on the number and quality of tips a user writes, a tip's quality being measured
based on the number of views, saves and "likes" it receives from other users. When a user earns expertise,
their tips are made more prominent and a label indicating their expertise is added beneath relevant tips.
Tastes[edit]
"Tastes" let a user personalise their search experience
Foursquare has a defined list of "tastes" in particular food items, styles of cuisine or environmental
aspects, which users may add to their profiles to let the service know what they like. New users are
presented with a list of words and phrases describing recognized tastes and they may select the ones that
appeal to them. Users can change their tastes at any time, and can add and remove items from their
profile. Foursquare uses natural language processing to match a user's tastes with the tips at nearby
venues that mention them. It is then able to recommend nearby places to the user that match their tastes.
Location detection[edit]

Foursquare on wearable phone watch

Foursquare 8.0 uses its own proprietary technology called Pilgrim to detect a user's location. Pilgrim is
able to guess a user's current location by comparing historical check-in data (previous users tacitly stating
"I am here") with a combination of signals such as a user‘s current GPS signal, cell tower triangulation,
cellular signal strength and surrounding wifi signals. In this way Foursquare can know a user's location
without them needing to "check in".[13]
Foursquare 8.0 features a 'Here' tab that lets the user see Tips about their current location. Pilgrim will
guess the current location and the user is able to correct the selection if wrong. The tab displays
information about the current venue, and includes a Check-in button. Tapping the button lets the user
check in with Swarm, before returning them to Foursquare. If they do not have the app installed, tapping
the button opens a page where they can download it.
Foursquare 8.0 also uses Pilgrim to track a user's location in the background. This enables the app to send
the user push notifications of things that they might find interesting around their current location. It also
uses this ability to learn about the kinds of places a user likes, based on when and how often they visit
different venues. It then uses this data to improve a user's recommendations, and to gauge the popularity
of a venue.
Ratings[edit]
In addition to leaving Tips, Foursquare 8.0 lets users rate venues by answering questions. The questions
help Foursquare understand how people feel about a place, including such questions as whether or not a
user likes it, how trendy it is, its cleanliness, how noisy it is. It also uses these questions to fill out missing
venue information such as asking whether the venue takes credit cards, or whether it has outdoor seating.
Foursquare gives each venue a numeric score between 0.1 and 10 to indicate its general popularity when
compared to other venues. Scores are calculated automatically factoring in check-in data, Tips and
Ratings.
Lists[edit]
Users can add venues to a personal "to do" list, and to curated lists with any criteria. With the launch of
Foursquare 8.0, adding venues to lists other than a to-do list was only possible on the website, but writing
in August 2014, Foursquare chief Dennis Crowley has assured users that lists would return "in a big way"
in the "soonish" future.[14]
Former features[edit]
Earlier versions of Foursquare supported check-ins and location sharing, but as of Foursquare 8.0, these
were moved to the service's sibling App, Swarm. Foursquare 8.0 never shares a user's location with their
followers.
In previous versions of Foursquare, if a user had checked into a venue on more days than anyone else in
the past 60 days, then they would be crowned "Mayor" of that venue. Someone else could then earn the
title by checking in more times than the previous mayor. This way users could vie for mayorships at
particular venues by checking in more often than other users in the area, and businesses could also offer
rewards for users who were the Mayor (such as food and drink discounts). As the services grew it became
increasingly difficult to compete for mayorships in high-density areas where the service was popular. The
mayorship feature was retired from Foursquare in version 8.0 and reimplemented in Swarm, where users
instead compete with friends for mayorships of venues, rather than against all other users of the
service.[15]
Badges were earned by checking into venues. There were a handful of introductory badges that were
earned as milestones in usage. Some badges were tied to venue "tags" and the badge earned depends on
the tags applied to the venue.[16] Other badges were specific to a city, venue, event, or date. In September
2010 badges began to be awarded for completing tasks as well as checking in.[17] On October 22, 2010,
astronaut Douglas H. Wheelock unlocked the NASA Explorer badge by checking into Foursquare from
the International Space Station.[18][19] In Foursquare 8.0, badges were retired, which upset some existing
users.[15]
Earlier versions of the app also used a "points" system, users receiving a numerical score for each check-
in, with over 100 bonuses, such as being first among friends to check into a place, or becoming the
venue's mayor. Users could check their standing against friends on a leaderboard within the app. In
Foursquare 8.0 points and leaderboards were retired.[20]

Swarm[edit]
Main article: Swarm (app)
In May 2014, the company launched Swarm, a companion app to Foursquare 8.0, that changed the social
networking and location sharing aspects of the service into a separate application. Swarm lets the user
share their location with friends, and see where their friends are. It includes a feature called
Neighbourhood Sharing that shares a user's general location (neighbourhood or city). The user can check
in to a venue to pin-point their location more specifically. Swarm works together with Foursquare 8.0 to
improve a user's recommendations - a user's Swarm check-ins help Foursquare understand the kinds of
places they like to go. Data from Swarm is also included in Foursquare 8.0, such as displaying which
other Swarm friend's have checked in to a venue.

Other features[edit]
Foursquare for business[edit]
Foursquare for Business is a suite of tools for businesses to manage their listing on the service.
Businesses can 'Claim' their listing which gives them access to free tools that lets them update their
business information (address, phone number etc.), add photos and tips, create 'Specials' and see visitor
statistics. Claiming a venue can be done for free via mail which takes several weeks to process, or
instantly with a credit card for a fee. In January 2013, Foursquare released 'Foursquare for Business', a
mobile app that lets businesses manage their listing on Foursquare from their iOS device.[21]
Foursquare API[edit]
Foursquare features a developer API that lets third-party applications make use of Foursquare's location
data. In March 2013, the Foursquare API had 40,000 registered developers. The API powers searches
third-party apps, including Evernote,Uber, Flickr and Jawbone.[22] Instagram formerly made use of the
Foursquare API but, after being purchased by Facebook, was forced to switch to Facebook Places at the
behest of its parent company, aggravating many existing users.[23]
Super Users[edit]
The service provides three levels of "Super User". Superuser status is conferred on users who have been
selected by foursquare staff for their helpful contributions to the community.[24]
All superusers can review a queue of requested changes for a single city, and can select a new city at will.

 Superuser level 1 can edit venue info (name, address, cross street, phone, Twitter names, map pin
location), mark venues as open or closed, request venue merges and deletions, edit venue tags, and
add categories.
 Superuser level 2 can additionally merge duplicate venue listings, adjust the latitude and longitude of
a venue, add a web address, and access a "country queue" of pending requests.
 Superuser level 3 adds the ability to create and remove venue aliases, as well as access a "global
queue" of pending requests needing superuser attention.
Brands[edit]
Foursquare Brands allows companies to create pages of tips and allows users to "follow" the company
and receive special, expert tips from them when they check-in at certain locations. Some of the companies
allow users to unlock special badges when they have achieved a certain number of check-ins. On most
companies' pages, their Facebook, Twitter and website links are displayed as well as tips and lists
generated by the company.
On July 25, 2012 Foursquare revealed Promoted Updates, an app update which will create a new revenue
generation stream for the company. The new program will allow companies to issue messages to
Foursquare users about deals or available products.[25]
In June 2013, the company introduced Time Machine, which provides a visual way to review one's
historical check-ins on the service. This feature contains an advertisement for the Samsung Galaxy
S4 smartphone[26]
Specials[edit]
"Specials" are an incentive for Foursquare users to check-in at a new spot or revisit their favorite hangout.
There are over 750,000[27] businesses that offer "Specials" that include discounts and freebies when users
check-in. Foursquare specials are intended for businesses to use to persuade new customers and regular
customers to visit their venue. Some businesses now display a Foursquare sign on their door or window
letting users know that there is a "Special" at that particular venue. "Specials" can include anything from a
free beer for the first check-in to 10% off the bill at a restaurant. Some Foursquare users only use
Foursquare for the "Specials".[citation needed]
Cross-site linking[edit]
A Foursquare user is allowed to link their profile to Facebook and/or Twitter.[28] Users will be able to
share their likes, saves, tips and lists to their Timeline in Facebook/Twitter. Also, the user can import their
contact lists from other mainstream OSN sites. This feature also provides an opportunity to know more
about the user.
In June 2016, Twitter quietly announced that it will now let you see when tweets are from a specific
place, like a business, sports stadium, or music festival. The location feature is available to all iOS users,
with other platforms coming later. Foursquare is powering the precise place identification for the feature.
In exchange it gets prominent branding, link backs, and the ability to improve its own database.[29]

Availability[edit]
Foursquare 8.0[edit]
Foursquare 8.0 is available for Android, iOS & Windows Phone devices. There are no plans to develop a
version for BlackBerry devices.
Other versions[edit]
Versions of Foursquare are available for Symbian, Series 40, MeeGo, WebOS, Maemo, Windows
Phone, Bada and BlackBerry and recently PlayStation Vita and Windows 8[30] applications.[31] 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 most smartphone applications can use. [32]
Foursquare for Business[edit]
'Foursquare for Business' is available for iOS.