foursquare

　 　 　

WordNet

1. in a square position; "the building stood foursquare"
2. characterized by firm and unwavering conviction; "a foursquare refusal to yield"

PrepTutorEJDIC

1. (特に建物が)正方形の / 断固たる

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出典(authority):フリー百科事典『ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』「2015/02/19 15:14:10」(JST)

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Foursquare Labs, Inc.

本社所在地	アメリカ合衆国 ニューヨーク州ニューヨーク
設立	2009年3月
業種	情報・通信業
事業内容	ソーシャル・ネットワーキング・サービス事業
従業員数	160名以上（2013年9月）
関係する人物	Dennis Crowley, Naveen Selvadurai（創業者）、Harry Heymann, Tristan Walker
外部リンク	http://foursquare.com/

foursquare（フォースクエア）は、位置情報に基づいたソーシャル・ネットワーキング・サービスのウェブサイト、携帯電話用ソフトウェア、およびゲーム（位置ゲー）である。

利用者は、携帯電話のショートメッセージサービスでメッセージを送ったり（米国国内のみ）、携帯端末固有のアプリケーションを用いて、「ベニュー」（venue, 「会場」の意）と呼ばれる特定の場所で「チェックイン」(check-in) する。foursquareの利用者には得点が与えられ、また「バッジ」(badge) が与えられる時もある。foursquareはDennis CrowleyとNaveen Selvaduraiによって作られた。Crowleyは以前に同様のプロジェクトであるDodgeballを設立したが、Dodgeballは2005年にGoogleに買収された後2009年には凍結された。

2013年9月の時点で、累計ユーザー数は4000万人以上、累計チェックイン数は45億回を超えた。

概要

foursquareは登録した利用者が友人と繋がったり居場所を更新したりすることを可能にするウェブサイトとモバイルアプリケーションである。仕事以外の時間や週末に、会場で「チェックイン」すると得点が与えられる。利用者はチェックインする時に更新する自分のTwitterやFacebookのアカウントを選ぶことができる。foursquareはiPhoneアプリケーションのバージョン1.3で、友人の更新を知らせるプッシュ型通知を可能にした。foursquareはこれを「Pings」と呼んでいる。利用者は特定のタグが付いたベニューでチェックインしたり、またはチェックインの頻度に応じてバッジを獲得することもできる。同社は将来的には利用者がサイトへ利用者独自のバッジを追加することができるようになると明らかにしている。もしある利用者が別々の日にあるベニューへ他の誰よりも多くチェックインして、またその利用者にプロフィール写真があれば、利用者はそのベニューの「メイヤー」（Mayor, 「市長」の意）として認定される。他の誰かがメイヤーより多くチェックインすると、前メイヤーに代わって新しい利用者がメイヤーの肩書を獲得する。利用者は私的に使うために「To Do」リストを作ったり、また他の利用者が読むことができる「Tips」をベニューに追加できる。それらはそのベニューでの素晴らしい食事や体験の提案として役立つ。

foursquareは2009年に、アムステルダム・アトランタ・オースティン・ボストン・シカゴ・ダラス・フォートワース都市圏・デンバー・デトロイト・ヘルシンキ・ヒューストン・ラスベガス・ロンドン・ロサンゼルス・マイアミ・ミネアポリス・セントポール都市圏・ニューヨーク・ピッツバーグ・フィラデルフィア・フェニックス・ポートランド・サンディエゴ・サンフランシスコ・シアトル・トロント・ワシントンD.C.・ソウル、そしてインドのボンベイなど世界的な100都市圏だけで限定的に利用できる状況で始められた。2010年1月、foursquareは世界中のどこからでもチェックインできるように位置モデルを変更した。2010年3月の時点では、foursquareは国際的に500,000名の利用者を抱えている。

現在foursquareにはiPhone, Android, HP webOS, BlackBerryおよびWindows Mobile用のアプリケーションがある。

2010年2月、同社はファンに小技、特典や新しいバッジを提供するため、Zagat, Bravo, Conde Nast, ニューヨークタイムズおよびその他いくつかの会社と新しい商業提携を結んだ。

2011年2月、KDDIがfoursquareと提携し、KDDIから販売される端末へfoursquareアプリケーションへのショートカットを搭載することが発表された。

2012年4月、累計ユーザー数は2000万人以上、累計チェックイン数は20億回を超えた。

2012年9月、ローソンがfoursquareと提携し、米国外企業としては初となるクーポン発券や、日本企業初のパートナーバッジ提供を始めた。

バッジ

様々な場所でチェックインすることでバッジが得られる。一部の街では特定の街だけで獲得できる固有のバッジがある。しかしながらfoursquareはバッジを扱う方法を変更し、現在は利用者がバッジを獲得した時、利用者は全ての街にまたがるバッジを持つ。一度プレーヤーがバッジを獲得すると、バッジはその利用者のプロファイルに無期限に残る。

多くのバッジを解錠する方法は、foursquareのスタッフの秘密である。使い方の道標として獲得できる一握りの入門用バッジがある。いくつかのバッジはベニュー「タグ」に結び付けられ、そのバッジはベニューに適用されたタグに依存して得られる。その他のバッジは街、ベニュー、イベントまたは日付を特定することがある。いくつかのバッジは同じアイコンを使うが別々に得られる。There are a few badges that are named similarly, but applied differently, specifically Far Far Away, Trifecta and I'm on a Boat.

スーパーユーザ・ステータス

foursquareは（スーパーユーザのバッジとは別に）3段階の「スーパーユーザ・ステータス」を提供する。スーパーユーザ・ステータスは頻繁にチェックインしたり新しいベニュー情報をfoursquareに提供したりする利用者に与えられる。

• スーパーユーザ・レベル1はベニュー情報（所在地、交差道路、Twitter名）の編集、「閉鎖」印を付けること、重複したベニューについてfoursquareに知らせることができる。
• スーパーユーザ・レベル2はベニュー情報の編集と重複したベニュー情報を統合することができるだけでなく、任意のベニューのためにベニュー種類を追加できる。
• スーパーユーザ・レベル3はベニューの別名を作成することや偽物／スパムのベニュー情報を削除する能力が加わる。

2013年9月現在で、147カ国・4万人のユーザーが、スーパーユーザ・ステータスを付与されている。

関連アプリケーション

現在、foursquareのAPIを用いて公式ウェブサイトを補強するアプリケーションやウェブサイトが存在する。最近作成された一例を挙げる。

アプリケーション	開発	説明
FourWhere	Sysomos	地図上のfoursquare利用者からのTipsやコメントのマッシュアップ。Sysomosが提供している（ログインや登録不要の）無料サービス。
Where Do You Go	Steven Lehrburger	特定の利用者についてチェックインの視覚的なヒートマップを生成
PleaseRobMe		自宅にいないことを公に共有する利用者を特定することで「インターネット上で正確な位置情報を共有することの危険性」を例示。foursquareはブログ上でPleaseRobMeに対応した。
じゃぽすく！		日本の携帯電話（フィーチャーフォン）でfoursquareが利用できる。GPSがついてない携帯でも簡易位置情報からチェックイン可能。スカウターも提供している（4sq Scouter）
ケータイでfoursquare		GPS内蔵のdocomo・au・Softbank携帯電話で使用可能なサービス
メールでFoursquare		携帯電話のブラウザは一切利用せず、 メールだけでベニューの検索からチェックインが可能

関連項目

• Brightkite
• Fire Eagle
• Geosocial Networking
• Google Latitude
• Hotlist
• 位置情報サービス
• ロケタッチ - LINE が運営する類似サービス。

脚注

外部リンク

• foursquare
• List of Foursquare Badges
• 2013年1月以前3ヶ月間のチェックイン5億回分をプロットした世界地図

wiki en

[Wiki en表示]

For the ball game, see four square. For other uses, see Four square (disambiguation).

Foursquare Labs, Inc.

Type	Private
Founded	New York City, New York, USA
Headquarters	New York City, New York, United States
Area served	Worldwide
Founder(s)	Dennis Crowley Naveen Selvadurai
Key people	Dennis Crowley, Co-Founder, CEO Naveen Selvadurai, Co-Founder
Employees	Over 170
Slogan(s)	Foursquare helps you find places you’ll love, anywhere in the world.
Website	foursquare.com
Alexa rank	635 (October 2014)
Type of site	Local search, recommender system
Registration	Required
Users	45 million
Available in	English, German, French, Indonesian, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Japanese, Turkish
Launched	March 11, 2009
Current status	Active

Foursquare is a local search and discovery service mobile app which provides a personalised local search experience for its users. By taking into account the places a user goes, the things they have told the app that they like, and the other users whose advice they trust, Foursquare aims to provide highly personalised recommendations of the best places to go around a user's current location.

The service was created in late 2008 and launched in 2009 by Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai. Crowley had previously founded the similar project Dodgeball as his graduate thesis project in the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at New York University. Google bought Dodgeball in 2005 and shut it down in 2009, replacing it with Google Latitude. Dodgeball user interactions were based on SMS technology, rather than an application. Foursquare was the second iteration of that same idea, that people can use mobile devices to interact with their environment. Foursquare was Dodgeball reimagined to take advantage of the new smartphones, like the iPhone, which had built in GPS to better detect a users location.

Until late July 2014, Foursquare featured a social networking layer that enabled a user to share their location with friends, via the "check in" - a user would manually tell the application when they were at a particular location using a mobile website, text messaging, or a device-specific application by selecting from a list of venues the application locates nearby. In May 2014, the company launched Swarm, a companion app to Foursquare, that reimagined the social networking and location sharing aspects of the service as 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.

As of December 2013, Foursquare had 45M registered users. Male and female users are equally represented and also 50 percent of users are outside the US. Support for French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Japanese was added in February 2011. Support for Indonesian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Thai was added in September 2011. Support for Turkish was added in June 2012.

Features

Foursquare 8.0 shows personalised recommendations of places to go around the user's current location

On August 7, 2014, Foursquare 8.0 was launched for iOS and Android devices. The new app has changed the focus of the app to being primarily a local search and discovery tool, where users can "follow" others to receive local recommendations from them.

Local search and recommendations

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 a number of factors including a users check-in history, their "Tastes" and their venue Ratings. The app also learns about the places they like to go as they move through the world and uses this to personalise their experience.

Tips and expertise

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 strictly limited to 200 characters in length, but can include a URL to link to an external site with more information, and can optionally include a photo. Tips can also 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

"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 are free to 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

Foursquare on wearable phone watch

Foursquare 8.0 uses its own proprietary technology called "Pilgrim" to automatically detect a user's location. Foursquare’s "Pilgrim" is able to accurately guess a users current location by comparing historical check-in data (previous users tacitly stating "I am here") with a combination of signals such as a users current GPS signal, cell tower triangulation, cellular signal strength and surrounding wifi signals. In this way Foursquare can know a users location without them needing to "check in".

Foursquare 8.0 features a 'Here' tab that lets the user see Tips about their current location. "Pilgrim" will attempt to guess the current location and the user is able to correct the selection it 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

In addition to leaving Tips, Foursquare 8.0 also lets users rate venues by answering a series of questions. The questions are designed to 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

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.

Former features

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.

Badges were earned by checking into various 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. 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. On October 22, 2010, astronaut Douglas H. Wheelock unlocked the NASA Explorer badge by checking into Foursquare from the International Space Station. In Foursquare 8.0, badges were retired, which upset some existing users.

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.

Swarm

Main article: Swarm (app)

In May 2014, the company launched Swarm, a companion app to Foursquare 8.0, that reimagined the social networking and location sharing aspects of the service as 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 ambiently shares a user's general location (neighbourhood or city). The user can also 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

Foursquare for business

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.

Foursquare API

Foursquare features a developer API that lets 3rd-party applications make use of Foursquare's location data. In March 2013, the Foursquare API had 40,000 registered developers. The API powers search in a wide range of third-party apps, including Evernote, Uber, Flickr and Jawbone. 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.

Super Users

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.

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

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 experience for both consumers and merchants as well as 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.

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

Specials

"Specials" are an incentive for Foursquare users to go "check-in" at a new spot or revisit their favorite hangout. There are over 750,000 different 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".

Cross-site Linking

A Foursquare user is allowed to link their profile to Facebook and/or Twitter. 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.

Availability

Foursquare 8.0

Foursquare 8.0 is currently available for Android, iOS & Windows Phone devices. There are currently no plans to develop a version for BlackBerry devices.

Other versions

Versions of Foursquare are available for Symbian, Series 40, MeeGo, WebOS, Maemo, Windows Phone, Bada and BlackBerry and recently PlayStation Vita and Windows 8 applications. 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.

Foursquare for Business

'Foursquare for Business' is currently available for iOS.

History

Naveen Selvadurai, co-founder of foursquare.

Foursquare started out in 2009 with limited availability in only 100 worldwide metro areas. In January 2010, Foursquare changed their location model to allow check-ins from any location worldwide. On February 21, 2011 Foursquare reached 7 million users IDs. 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.

Foursquare 2.0

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.

Foursquare 3.0

Foursquare 3.0 was released for Android and iPhone users on March 8, 2011. As of July 4, 2011, the official Foursquare application for Windows Phone 7 also has these features.

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

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.

Foursquare 5.0

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". Foursquare incorporated features from social discovery and local search applications, as well as the "like" feature made famous by Facebook.

On November 5, 2012, Foursquare announced an update to their iOS mobile app that will 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 will help foursquare better compete with other location services like Yelp.

On November 7, 2012, 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.

On November 21, 2012, foursquare announced a "Recently Opened" feature to its iOS app, allowing users to find recently opened locations in their areas.

Foursquare 6.0

Foursquare 6.0 was released on April 10, 2013.

Foursquare 7.0

Foursquare 7.0 was released on December 5, 2013.

Foursquare 8.0 and Swarm 1.0 - Splitting the Service

Swarm 1.0 was released on May 5, 2014 and Foursquare 8.0 was released on August 6, 2014.

Funding

Foursquare is principally funded by Union Square Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, and Spark Capital. The company raised $1.35 million in its Series A and $20 million in its Series B round. On June 24, 2011, Foursquare raised $50 million on a $600 million valuation. Their Series D funding of $41 million was announced on April 11, 2013 and led by Silver Lake Partners. Unlike prior funding rounds that had been financed via equity, a good portion of Series D came in the form of convertible debt from existing investors.

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.

In June 2011, Foursquare announced a promotional partnership with American Express, as part of AmEx's "sync" social media strategy, which allows for discounts to be applied directly to qualified American Express account holders by checking in to participating vendors.

In March 2012, Foursquare announced they would no longer be using Google Maps for their platform, instead moving to OpenStreetMap, via MapBox rendering and style. Foursquare stated they were happier to promote crowd-sourced, open data. As of September 2014 Foursquare was still using Google Maps in the Android app.

Foursquare partnered with the London 2012 Olympics, allowing users to check in at numerous locations in and around the Olympic venue. A "Get Fit for Olympic Day" badge was created for the event as well.

Early 2014, Microsoft announced an extensive partnership with Foursquare, giving access to their users’ physical movements and preferences. This data can be used to personalize search results on the search engine Bing.

Awards

• In 2010, Foursquare was named a runner-up in the T3 Gadget Awards 2010 as the App of the Year.
• In August 2010, the company was a finalist in Lead411's New York City Hot 125.
• In April 2010, Foursquare received a Webby Award as one of the best mobile social networks.
• In March 2010, Foursquare was nominated for the 13th annual SXSW Web Awards in the Mobile Category.
• Foursquare was named a 2011 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum in the Information Technologies and New Media category.
• In January 2011, Foursquare was named Best Location Based Service in the TechCrunch Crunchies 2010.

Foursquare Day

Foursquare acknowledged a grass-roots effort that started in Tampa, Florida in 2010 by declaring April 16 "Foursquare Day", April being the 4th month and the 16th being equal to four squared. Some cities have made official proclamations of April 16 being Foursquare Day (Istanbul, Turkey; Atlanta, Georgia; Austin, Texas; Cincinnati, Ohio; Corpus Christi, Texas; Gaithersburg, Maryland; Indianapolis, Indiana; Kalamazoo, Michigan; Kennesaw, Georgia; Manchester, New Hampshire; New York City; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; Seattle, Washington; Miami, Florida; Victoria, Canada; Toronto, Canada; Ramat Hasharon, Israel; Singapore).

Foursquare Day was coined by Nate Bonilla-Warford, an optometrist from Tampa, Florida on March 12, 2010. The idea came to him while "thinking about new ways to promote his business".

In 2010 McDonald's launched a spring pilot program that took advantage of Foursquare Day. Foursquare users who checked into McDonald's restaurants on Foursquare Day were given the chance to win gift cards in 5 and 10 dollar increments. Mashable reported that there was a "33% increase in foot traffic" to McDonald's venues, as apparent in the increase in Foursquare check-ins.

Privacy

In February 2010, a site known as Please Rob Me was launched, a site which scraped data from public Twitter messages that had been pushed through Foursquare, to list people who were not at home. The purpose of the site was to raise awareness about the potential thoughtlessness of location sharing, the site's founder saying "On one end we're leaving lights on when we're going on a holiday, and on the other we're telling everybody on the internet we're not home."

A privacy issue was also observed for those who connected their Twitter account to Foursquare. If such a user was joined at a location by one of their Foursquare contacts who was also using Twitter, that user would have the option to have Foursquare post a message such as "I am at Starbucks – Santa Clara (link to map) w/@mediaphyter" to their own Twitter feed. Similarly, if a user had agreed for their location to be shared with other Foursquare users, that user's Foursquare contacts would be able to easily share their location publicly on Twitter.

Later in 2010, white hat hacker Jesper Andersen discovered a vulnerability on foursquare that raised privacy concerns. foursquare's location pages display a grid of 50 pictures that is generated randomly, regardless of their privacy settings. 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. Andersen then crafted a script that collected check-in information. It is estimated that Andersen collected around 875,000 check-ins. Andersen contacted foursquare about the vulnerability, and foursquare responded by fixing their privacy settings.

In 2011, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) urged the White House to increase Internet privacy measures, especially for mobile devices and social networks, stating that federal laws have not kept up with the applications to ensure that personal information isn't being improperly used.

In response to the privacy issues regarding social networking sites, foursquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai states that "Users decide if they want to push to Twitter or Facebook, over what information they want to share and send" and "There is a lot of misunderstanding about location based services. On foursquare, if you don't want people to know you are on a date or with a friend at a certain place, then you don't have to let people know. You don't check in." Selvadurai also states that foursquare does not passively track users, which means a user has to actively check in to let people know where they are.

On May 8, 2012 Foursquare developers announced a change to the API in response to a number of so-called "stalker" applications which had been making the locations of e.g. all female users within a specific area available to the public.

In late December 2012, Foursquare updated its privacy policy which will now display users' full names, as opposed to an initial for a surname. In addition, companies will now be able to view a more detailed overview of visitors who have checked into their businesses throughout the day.

See also

• Gowalla
• Jiepang, a similar service often dubbed the "Foursquare of China"

References

External links

• Official website (Mobile)
• Official blog
• Foursquare at iTunes Preview
• Foursquare at the Google Play store
• Foursquare 8.0 Download page
• Swarm App Website
• Super User Forums

English Journal

• Influence of sociodemographics on human mobility.

• Lenormand M1, Louail T2, Cantú-Ros OG3, Picornell M3, Herranz R3, Arias JM4, Barthelemy M5, Miguel MS1, Ramasco JJ1.
• Scientific reports.Sci Rep.2015 May 20;5:10075. doi: 10.1038/srep10075.
• Human mobility has been traditionally studied using surveys that deliver snapshots of population displacement patterns. The growing accessibility to ICT information from portable digital media has recently opened the possibility of exploring human behavior at high spatio-temporal resolutions. Mobile
• PMID 25993055

• Location contexts of user check-ins to model urban geo life-style patterns.

• Hasan S1, Ukkusuri SV2.
• PloS one.PLoS One.2015 May 13;10(5):e0124819. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0124819. eCollection 2015.
• Geo-location data from social media offers us information, in new ways, to understand people's attitudes and interests through their activity choices. In this paper, we explore the idea of inferring individual life-style patterns from activity-location choices revealed in social media. We present a
• PMID 25970430

• Use of social media across US hospitals: descriptive analysis of adoption and utilization.

• Griffis HM1, Kilaru AS, Werner RM, Asch DA, Hershey JC, Hill S, Ha YP, Sellers A, Mahoney K, Merchant RM.
• Journal of medical Internet research.J Med Internet Res.2014 Nov 27;16(11):e264. doi: 10.2196/jmir.3758.
• BACKGROUND: Use of social media has become widespread across the United States. Although businesses have invested in social media to engage consumers and promote products, less is known about the extent to which hospitals are using social media to interact with patients and promote health.OBJECTIVE:
• PMID 25431831

• Industry in motion: using smart phones to explore the spatial network of the garment industry in New York City.

• Williams S1, Currid-Halkett E2.
• PloS one.PLoS One.2014 Feb 5;9(2):e86165. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0086165. eCollection 2014.
• Industrial agglomerations have long been thought to offer economic and social benefits to firms and people that are only captured by location within their specified geographies. Using the case study of New York City's garment industry along with data acquired from cell phones and social media, this
• PMID 24505256

Japanese Journal

• まち歩きイベント向けの位置情報SNS応用システムの開発と評価

• 服部 哲,復本 寅之介,横井 茂樹,速水 治夫
• 情報処理学会研究報告. 情報システムと社会環境研究報告 2011-IS-118(3), 1-6, 2011-11-28
• … Foursquare を活用して地域情報を発信する試みが行われている.しかし,従来の取り組みは Foursquare に場所 (Venue と呼ばれる) の情報を登録するのみであるため,地域のまち歩きイベントで使うには不十分である.本論文では,Foursquare に登録されている場所のうち,あらかじめ指定した場所に,イベントの開催時間内に何箇所チェックインしたかに応じて,独自のバッジを提示するシステムを …
• NAID 110008694741

• ジオメディアの分布調査および携帯端末を用いたジオローカルコンテンツ構築システムの開発

• 石田 和成
• 情報処理学会研究報告. DD, [デジタル・ドキュメント] 2011-DD-80(11), 1-8, 2011-03-21
• … Foursquare などの位置情報サービスで登録される POI(Point of Interest) の分布調査を行った。 …
• NAID 110008583761

• ジオメディアの分布調査および携帯端末を用いたジオローカルコンテンツ構築システムの開発

• 石田 和成
• 情報処理学会研究報告. 情報学基礎研究会報告 2011-IFAT-102(11), 1-8, 2011-03-21
• … Foursquare などの位置情報サービスで登録される POI(Point of Interest) の分布調査を行った。 …
• NAID 110008583698

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