Foursquare has increasingly shifted its sights from the present to the future, looking at how it can help recommend relevant places where people should go. But we’re seeing that the location-based network is also finding a lot of opportunities in leveraging the past. Read more »
Foursquare has talked about evolving beyond the check-in, but that doesn’t mean the check-in is dead. Now the location-based social network is adding event check-ins for locations featuring movies, sporting events and concerts. Event check-ins automatically tell people what you’re doing, not just where you are. Read more »
Foursquare and Yelp are moving into more direct competition, feature by feature. On Monday, Foursquare launched a new feature that allows users to create lists of the places they’ve checked into or plan to visit, bringing it further into the review and recommendation space. Read more »
Beginning next week, Redbox users will be able to get discounts on rentals when they check in at kiosks on Foursquare. For the location-based service, it’s one way to grab new users who don’t already share where they are, and introduce them to new places. Read more »
A recent batch of product and funding announcements points to a real trend: the infrastructure and business ecosystem for social media advertising is developing rapidly. That’s good news for marketers – and even for Facebook competitors – as it is critical for growing the market beyond ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Geo-location check-in services such as Foursquare are super trendy in tech and new media circles. But will they catch on with mainstream audiences enough to make big retailers pay attention? A new market research study indicates that the answer may be no. Read more »
The big news lately in local deals is around public offerings by Groupon and LivingSocial and the rising competition from web players like Google and Facebook. But a much older player, American Express, is also activating local deals through social channels. With 90 million card members ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Foursquare is now poised to rev up its revenue engine by eventually charging merchants to offer deals and access its business tools. Foursquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai told the New York Post that the company is planning to charge its more than half a million merchants. Read more »
The future of coupons is moving toward digital and mobile, something that startup SavingStar is taking full advantage of. The company told me it has hit half a million users since it launched its ecoupon product in April, putting it on a faster pace than Groupon’s. Read more »
American Express, a 162-year-old financial services company, is marshaling its vast resources in pretty impressive ways to create what could be one of the strongest offerings in the local commerce space. The company said it’s just getting started with partnerships with Facebook, Foursquare and SCVNGR. Read more »
LocalResponse — a marketing platform that allows advertisers to send out targeted tweets to consumers based on where consumers have checked in or where they say they are on social networks — has found that its targeting work is paying off with significant engagement from consumers. Read more »
WhitePages’ new local discovery app is launching on Android first, in part because the platform allows it the ability to better track the efficacy of location-based ads. It’s another sign that Android is appealing to more developers. Read more »
A startup called Tackable has launched a mobile “crowdsourcing” app for the San Jose Mercury News called TapIn that allows the paper to ask readers to submit photos and tips about news events, and also allows it to pitch them on Groupon-style location-based discount offers. Read more »
Location-based social network Foursquare has been trying to move beyond the “check in” for some time, and new partnerships with daily-deal operators like LivingSocial could be a major step forward. Now all it has to do is land Groupon, and fight off Google and Facebook. Read more »
More than 10,000 developers behind some of the hottest mobile apps are using Foursquare’s application programming interface to tap into its location and places database, the company said Friday. The most popular apps running on Foursquare’s API include Instagram, Tweetdeck and Gowalla. Read more »
GigaOM conducted a survey over the Fourth of July weekend of GigaOM readers regarding Google+’s chances for success, its competitive weapons and its likely impact on the competitive social media environment. Here’s a snippet of what we discovered about the prospects for Google’s latest social venture. Read more »
Foursquare is no longer a US phenomenon – the company is beginning to see some rapid growth in highly mobile societies and the newest one to join the party is Brazil which like Indonesia represents future growth for services like Foursquare. Brazil is already hot for Foursquare. Read more »
Foursquare has raised $50 million in a new funding round led by venture capital firm Andreessen-Horowitz, bringing Foursquare’s total venture capital investment to just over $70 million. The new backing will certainly come in handy as Foursquare works to keep its own edge in a growing space. Read more »
Foursquare is going national with a partnership with American Express that will enable its members to redeem location-based deals by swiping their credit card. But the company faces challenges in proving that it can compete in the local commerce space. Read more »
Cloud computing has grown from a pie-in-the-sky vision to a major IT movement over the past few years. As its promise has grown, though, so too has its scope. This report covers six key sectors in cloud computing: commodity Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), enterprise IaaS, Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), cloud storage and private clouds. We highlight the current state of each and provide informed insights into where they — and cloud computing in general — are headed. Much like any market in a still-evolving state, the infrastructure of the cloud-computing transition is still being built by startups, practitioners and even a big-name company or two. Companies mentioned in this report include VMware, Amazon, Nasuni, Terremark and Heroku. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
There’s a tension at the heart of web working. Technology allows us to do our jobs anywhere, and there’s plenty of appetite for the flexibility of location-independence. But while workers want autonomy, they also want social connection. How will this tension be resolved in the future? Read more »
If you think downloading yet another mobile app featuring photo-sharing, geo-location, and social networking is crazy, prepare yourself for a moment of insanity. MeetTrover, a nifty new iPhone app launched in May that perfectly fills the gaps left by Instagram, Foursquare and Yelp. Read more »
Groupon’s prospectus for an IPO started arguments over the company’s huge losses. Silicon Valley wants Groupon to look like a technology company, but right now it’s more or less in the Yellow Pages business. But by better applying big data analysis, Groupon could start seeing profits. Read more »
AnyClip has partnered with Foursquare to launch a scavenger hunt around New York City. The Clip Trail promotion, which went live during New York’s Internet Week, leverages QR code stickers in various locations and unlocks video clips and gives users a chance to win movie passes. Read more »
With almost 10 million users, Foursquare is set to be featured as the default location application on the INQ Cloud Touch phone, also known as the Facebook phone. Dennis Crowley said INQ is implementing Foursquare’s API in its phone to offer the location service. Read more »
Location-based services are still traveling a long road toward mainstream adoption but the growth of smartphones and acceptance by women appear to be helping accelerate the rise of check-ins and suggest location services could have a bright future ahead. Read more »
The check-in was big last year though people are now questioning its basic usefulness as many look to what’s next beyond the simple act. But the check-in still has a lot of value, something social travel site Gogobot is illustrating with new Foursquare and Facebook integration. Read more »
More than almost any other national brand, the Gap has been on the cutting edge with its marketing trials, working with Facebook, Groupon, Foursquare, Visa, JiWire and others to figure out how to craft its image and message for a much more social and mobile audience. Read more »
For Silicon Valley startups, good timing can be just as crucial as good technology. Just ask Bunchball, the six-year-old, San Jose, Calif.-based, social gaming, software startup. In 2005, when the company debuted its software platform, the current industry buzzword “gamification” hadn’t even been coined yet. Read more »
Visa has been working with the Gap on a campaign that provides discounts and promotions via text message when users make certain transactions on their Visa card. The program shows how mobile offers and discounts are incorporating more intelligence, which will be key for success. Read more »
Location-based app Loopt is looking beyond the check-in and trying to engage users by providing them information about what they should do they they arrive. Loopt is introducing Loopt Qs, a lightweight real-time question and answer feature that allows users to get answers to popular questions. Read more »
Foursquare has been grown to almost 10 million users by connecting them in the present tense to their location. But the company sees a much brighter future in focusing on the future movements of its users, said Dennis Crowley, who spoke at the Where 2.0 conference. Read more »
The trend to add Foursquare-like features has turned into a bandwagon. But is HeyZap’s new Android app, which lets you check in to mobile games, one idea that’s more than just a copycat? The company thinks the app discovery system is shifting, just like gaming. Read more »
Miso offers its users mobile phone apps to check into TV shows and earn badges for their participation. So why does Miso CEO Somrat Niyogi think that these types of check-ins aren’t the key make TV more social, and what does he want to do instead? Read more »
Foursquare released its new version 3.0 application. It is an application that moves beyond check-in, and many ways foretells the future of geo-local services. It might be time for location-aware apps to make an appearance and in the very near future start offering “suggestions.” Read more »
Foursquare is taking a big leap ahead in its story with version 3.0 as it matures into a much more complete and polished location-based service capable of tackling its original vision of making cities easier to use for people. Read more »
Social commerce involves businesses using online collaborative tools — social networks, real-time feeds and user-generated contributions, for example — in order to sell products and services to consumers. The space is now more dynamic than ever: Hundreds of startups like Groupon, Zynga and CrowdStar have emerged, and it’s also attracting the attention — and cash — of online giants like Google, Amazon and Apple. This report examines the factors propelling the sector’s growth, how it will evolve over the next one to three years and what that means for those companies involved. We also examine factors inhibiting the growth of social commerce, and the likelihood of fragmentation as more local markets emerge. Companies mentioned in this report include Groupon, Foursquare, Gowalla, Playfish and LivingSocial. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
AOL’s recent acquisition of the Huffington Post for $315 million has centered a lot of attention on its content strategy — big part of which is automating and standardizing content that attracts search-related advertising. While there are some clear benefits to this “content farm” approach to content, there are also some significant disadvantages. Here we look at some of the leaders in this sector and their histories, as well as the key risks and benefits of the content farm strategy. Companies mentioned in this report include AOL, The Huffington Post, MySpace, Demand Media, Google and Associated Content. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Today on the Net: Al-Jazeera launches a Google TV-optimized website, Foursquare celebrates check-in records and citizens in Egypt document their victory via online video. Read more »
Foursquare says it signed up its 6 millionth user last week, and that the location-based network has grown by more than 3,400 percent over the past year — and the company’s co-founder said it is worth $250 million. But it is still far from mainstream. Read more »
