Foursquare Shuts Down Location API for “Girls Around Me” App

A recent application that allowed users to spot the girls that were within their vicinity has had some of its rights revoked by Foursquare.  The app, called “Girls Around Me”, was scanning public Foursquare and Facebook to determine whether there were any females in your location.  If a girl had checked in to a location near you or had listed personal location information on Facebook, GAM would find this and show their position overlaid on a map.  Obviously, when this came to light people were a bit unnerved by the whole thing.
The app was first discovered by John Brownlee over at Cult of Mac and has since gone viral.  John tells the interesting story of showing this app to friends to set their “skin crawling”, and explains how the most worrying thing about the app is how it uses public information — nothing the app is doing is technically forbidden.  It raises a few questions for platform creators — questions that other services Tumblr have been facing recently: Do you draw moral and ethical boundaries on the content on your site?
It seems like the answer is yes for extreme cases like these.  There’s no reason to let this application continue to provide potentially dangerous information to people, and Foursquare took the opportunity to emphasize this by shutting down GAM’s access to the Foursquare location API.  This was followed by Apple taking the application down from the App Store.

19:38 by Robert dawne · 0

Foursquare Co-founder Naveen Selvadurai Checks Out

Three years after launching Foursquare in New York City, co-founder Naveen Selvadurai announced that he is leaving the company.
During his tenure, the Foursquare community grew from roughly one hundred Beta testers to 15 million people using the check-in service and 750,000 businesses on the merchant platform.  The site has logged more than 1.5 billion check-ins to date.
With over 100 employees, the growing company has moved its headquarters to a bigger office in SoHo and added a satellite office in San Francisco.
GigaOm writer Om Malik was suspicious when when Spark Capital, one of Foursquare’s investors, bought $50 million worth of employee stock last month. Today, Selvadurai confirmed in a blog post that he would be leaving the company at the end of the month.
“After three years, I feel I’ve done all I can do and I’m moving on,” wrote Selvadurai. “[Co-founder Dennis Crowley] and I have been discussing timing for a while, and we decided that now, on this anniversary, it feels right to begin the transition.”
Selvadurai will oversee the release of a few “final projects” before he leaves, and will remain on the board of advisers as the rest of the company moves forward.
“But spring is time for things that are new,” Selvadurai continued, “and I realize that I have a desire to do something new as well. I’m not sure about my exact next steps, but I’ll probably get back to what I love most – being an entrepreneur, learning and building new things.”

15:03 by Robert dawne · 0

Foursquare’s Inflection Point: People Using The App, But Not Checking In

When Dennis Crowley, the CEO of Foursquare, visited the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last year, he told me he spent a lot of time explaining Foursquare to the operators and vendors that are the main visitors at this event.
This year, he said the number of business cards he was handed was “like this,” making a big C-shape with his index finger and thumb. Why the change? “I think we are one of a handful of companies that builds products that would actually encourage people to upgrade their devices,” he said. That’s an important fact to remember as smartphone penetration continues to grow and takeup slows down, specifically in the developed markets where Foursquare has most made its mark.
That growth in reputation has been matched by a growth in Foursquare’s business: the company has tripled its numbers in the last year, going from “around five million” to more than 15 million, Crowley said.
That’s something that is impressing investors, too — with news that Spark Capital is reportedly buying up employee stock. But perhaps more interesting, he says, is that the company is starting to notice a marked change in behavior:
“People are using the app, but they’re not checking in,” he told me. “I asked myself: did we break something? But in fact, it’s because people are using Foursquare to look for where their friends are, to find things, and as a recommendation service. It’s almost like it doesn’t occur to them to check in.”
Crowley compares this to the moment on Twitter in 2009 when the service suddenly shifted gears, and it was not about the number of people tweeting but about how many are reading those tweets.
“When you start, you are so focused on engagement,” he said. “Then you hit this point when you are big enough and say there is something awesome going on anyway. At some point you look and say, oh wow, the consumption model is actually taking off.”
That seems to fit well with Crowley’s vision of how Foursquare is going to grow in the near future.
Some social media sites like Facebook have made a big effort to net in members using whatever means possible — so, for example, you get pared-down Facebook experiences delivered on some of the most basic phones around.
But Foursquare seems to be more interested in behavior than the scale: “We want to change experiences,” he said. The best way to do that, Crowley added, is to use maps, access to GPS and the other sensors you have on smartphones. “We want people to use the stuff we build, and to do that you have to focus on the great things,” he said. “These are not toys; they are big defining features that are changing the tune on location services.”
That has so far taken the company to making apps for most major mobile platforms, and while some of those are seeing especially strong usage in particular markets — BlackBerry usage, he says, is highest in southeast Asia and Brazil — by far the most popular platform is iOS.
But that growth has only partially manifested in staffing: Foursquare has gone from 18 people eight months ago to 100 now, but some big holes remain. There is, for example, only one business development guy in Europe, Omid Ashtari, who apparently currently works out of Soho House in Shoreditch, London. But there are also some key engineers coming on board from Google and other places.
And, that growth is slowly but surely starting to emerge as monetization on the platform, too. Crowley says that so far there are already 750,000 merchants registered on its platform, and most of that growth has been viral, without a sales force driving it.
None of those merchants are being charged “yet”, but he said but he said Foursquare will probably start experimenting later this year with new features that will be charged.
He said he’s confident that there will be a market for this because there are already companies calling up asking what they should be budgeting for the services — even without them launched.
What will those features be? The kinds of tools you are already seeing around retail engagement, but with a Foursquare flavor: “We have enough check-in data to make some amazing stuff,” he said.
It sounds like the data will take the form of a kind of dashboard that would segment customers and popular items. Whether the connection to the Foursquare app makes either that data easier to collect, or more unique than what can already be gathered by the businesses themselves through their loyalty programs, is the big question.
But if it appears that Foursquare is becoming a more commercial network, one thing that Crowley says it won’t be in the near future is a way to pay for things. “It’s not something we are actively working on,” he said. “It’s the bottom of the funnel for us and if we did something it would probably be in partnership.”
That is probably a good thing, given how many other companies are piling in on mobile payments now, not just operators, but credit card companies, startups, and if you believe the WSJ today, big retailers like Target and Walmart.
But as a measure of how far he seems to be from this scene, he is pretty dismissive of NFC — a big topic this last week at MWC — and doesn’t see the point of a phone able to make a transaction if a credit card works just as well. “I prefer to find solutions to actual problems that exist.”

11:27 by Robert dawne · 0

5 Clever Social Media Campaigns to Learn From

You don't have to be in the market for a Super Bowl ad to learn who the world's biggest marketers are. In fact, as a quick visit to Facebook illustrates, social media has a leveling effect: Whether you're Coca-Cola or Jones Soda, your Facebook page looks pretty much the same. Coke's billions won't buy a dedicated wing on Twitter, either.
With this in mind, the following social media campaigns from marketers big and small are designed to be idea generators. This isn't a ranking of the most effective social media campaigns of the year, but rather the ones that have the most to offer a small-business owner with big ideas and a not-so-big marketing budget.
1. Kraft Macaroni & Cheese's Jinx
Last March, the venerable Kraft brand launched an interesting campaign on Twitter: Whenever two people individually used the phrase "mac & cheese" in a tweet, Kraft sent both a link pointing out the "Mac & Jinx" (as in the childhood game Jinx.) The first one to reply back got five free boxes of Kraft Mac & Cheese and a t-shirt.
What you can learn from this: This is a very low-cost way to track down potential fans on Twitter. All you have to do is search a given term and identify two people who tweet the same phrase at (roughly) the same time. In return, you'll gain goodwill, a likely follower and probably some good word-of-mouth buzz on the social network.
2. Ingo's Face Logo
When Swedish ad agencies Grey Stockholm and Ogilvy Stockholm merged last year, they wanted to get social media fans involved. The two agencies asked fans to participate by signing into Facebook to see the new name. Every time new people logged on to the dedicated site, the logo added their profile picture. With every picture, the logo got a little bigger, until 2,890 fan photos comprised the full name, Ingo, over a four-hour period.
What you can learn from this: This is another inexpensive way to get fans literally enmeshed with the brand. Another alternative is to create a real-life mosaic based on pictures of your Facebook fans, a project that Mashable recently completed in its headquarters.
3. BlueCross BlueShield of Minnesota's Human Doing
What better way to illustrate the plight of the common man than an actual common man? That was the thinking behind a BlueCross BlueShield of Minnesota program last year that put Scott Jorgenson, a St. Paul resident, in a glass apartment in the Mall of America for a month. To demonstrate the recuperative effects of exercise, Jorgenson was put on a workout routine for the month that compelled him to exercise three to five times a day, in 10-minute spurts. In a social media twist, Twitter and Facebook followers dictated the type of exercise for each session.
What you can learn from this: Creating an event, especially one that involves social media fans, is an alternative to launching an ad campaign. Humanizing a problem for which your company provides a solution is also a good idea.
4. GranataPet's Foursquare-Enabled Billboard
Pet food brand GranataPet earned worldwide attention last year for its billboard in Agenta, Germany. This wasn't just any billboard, though. It was rigged so that if a consumer checked in on Foursquare, the billboard would dispense some of the company's dog food. Someone from Granata's ad agency filmed the billboard in action, and the video now has more than 50,000 views on YouTube (in various iterations).
What you can learn from this: In the social media age, a single ad or a single billboard can generate images, press and videos, but only if it's clever enough.
5. Reinert Sausages's Wurst-Face App
Another German brand, Reinert Sausages, transcended its roots with a clever Facebook app that lets users upload their photo and receive a "Wurst Face," a graven image of themselves in cold cuts. The name "Wurst Face" comes from the extra piece of sausage that kids get for free at the butcher.
What you can learn from this: If you can create an app that's social, fun and brand-appropriate, it will function more effectively than even a high-budget ad campaign.

10:59 by Robert dawne · 0

Foursquare Rolls Out New Version Of “Explore” On Mobile With Filters & Improved Search

This morning, Foursquare launched an updated version of its “Explore” feature for both its iPhone and Android applications. The new version brings over several of the features already available through Foursquare on the web, including filters, photos in search results and the ability to change your location.
After updating your mobile app, you’ll see the improvements in the “Explore,” section, Foursquare’s local guide which is augmented by your friends’ recommendations and visits as well as other Foursquare users’ tips and comments. Like a mini local search engine, you can search for venues by category (“coffee,” “nightlife”), name, or even something very specific, like what  food you’re in the mood for (“tuna,” “burgers”). You can also tap “Specials” to see just those venues offering check-in or mayor discounts.
Starting today, you’ll now be able to use the new filter button (at the top right on iOS or bottom right on Android) to narrow your search results by options like “New to me,” places you’ve already been, “Both,” or, alternatively, you can choose to see those places your friends have tried.
You can also use Explore to find recommended places in areas outside your current location, as determined by your phone’s GPS. You can either type in a location or drag the map around, then pinch or tap to zoom into new neighborhoods.
Although still sometimes overlooked by those who just use Foursquare as a checkin service/social network, Explore represents a key new direction for the location-based startup. The idea, as Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley explained last month when Explore arrived on the web, is to try to “make local search much smarter…it’s based off what you and your friends actually do, where you go and when you go.”
And, for obvious reasons, local search is much smarter when you can actually use it while on the go. The new Foursquare apps are out now, check the appropriate app store for the update.

15:04 by Robert dawne · 0