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Foursquare Goes Global

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Foursquare, the addictive and yet slightly creepy location-based status updater/mobile game, has gone global. When it first launched, users were limited to checking in to stores, restaurants and other locations in select North American cities; Foursquare scaled out to 15 European cities last November, and now, there’s no limit to where users can check in from.

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At stake are the bragging rights for being the most far-reaching—and ultimately, most-utilized—mobile social location-tagging service, as well as potential local ad revenues from businesses that want to offer coupons and discounts to users. As CNET notes, Rival Gowalla is better-funded and had global capabilities before Foursquare did. Other challengers include Loopt and Brightkite.

The catch is that newer cities and neighborhoods aren’t auto-populated in the Foursquare app, meaning people need to enter a name like “Valley Stream,” or “Playa del Rey,” to check in to a location in lesser-known locales. The company is “soft-launching” the global option, meaning not all users will see it yet.

Jan 5, 2010 4:53 PM ET

Foursquare screengrab


Posted In: Advertising, Local, Social Media, Technologies / Formats, foursquare

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