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Foursquare promised for N9, updated S40 variant looks to tide you over (video)
Been too long since your last MeeGo fix? Foursquare's stepping in to hold you over with a video of the popular location-based service on Nokia's upcoming N9. While waiting to get your grubby paws all over Elop's miscarriage, indulge yourself in an updated S40 app -- shown running here on a couple Touch-and-Type devices -- which now features tighter Ovi Maps integration and the heretofore omitted "Explore" function. The inclusions, the company reckons, will help those in emerging markets like South America and Asia grow its ten million over-sharing user base. Glimpses of both can be seen beyond the break along with Foursquare's CEO Naveen Selvadurai musing on all things Finnish.
Windows Phone 7 Foursquare app re-released, tweet counts rise rapidly
Bummed about the myriad issues surrounding the original Foursquare app for Windows Phone 7? The troublesome program was pulled due to lacking features and a rather sub-par user experience, leaving mayors everywhere unable to verify their credentials for hard-earned discounts. Well fret no more, friends. A new version of the mobile check-in application has been released, showing off a retooled interface that takes full advantage of Microsoft's panoramic UI. Among other features are live tile, tap-and-hold check-in, and a map that shows friends' check-ins alongside nearby specials. Version 2.0, as it's being called, is now available in the Windows Phone Marketplace -- your Twitter followers have probably missed all of your Taco Bell Fourthmeal check-ins anyway.
World of Fourcraft makes New York 'hood loyalty fun again
When Napoleon tried to invade Russia in 1812, his armies froze to death and he suffered a terrible, morale-crushing defeat -- and now you can too, all from the comfort of your favorite New York neighborhood! World of Fourcraft is an innovative app that turns New York's five boroughs into a giant game of Risk through the clever use of Foursquare. Users pledge loyalty to a team and check in to their chosen boroughs, which is similar to moving a plastic Risk soldier to that area, to build up their armies. An algorithm then decides who owns what based on these check-ins. As of the end of June, USA Today reported World of Fourcraft had roughly 100 players and Manhattan was winning. But as Napoleon knows, winning streaks can change rapidly and without warning. Or maybe he just couldn't see the signs. (Because they were high up.) (And he was short.)
World of Fourcraft brings battle of the boroughs to Foursquare
There's a war on in New York City. The lines of loyalty were drawn way back in 1898 and, ever since, it's been battle for borough superiority. A team of hackers has ushered this county rivalry into the internet age, turning the Big Apple into a giant Risk board where check-ins replace dice rolls and armies are gathered on Foursquare. In World of Fourcraft users pledge fealty to a particular locale then, for the honor of their homeland, check-in to wrest control of neighborhoods from their residents and defend their own turf from potential usurpers. The whole project was whipped up last weekend during a hackathon at New York's General Assembly. At the moment it does little more than tally check-ins, but the creators plan to add new features in the future. Now, go forth and do battle for your block but, don't stray too far -- to the north and east of the Boogie Down Bronx, and the south and west of the Slums of Shaolin, lies The Waste Land.
Netflix, Foursquare, LinkedIn, and Square apps expose your data
Here's a little tip for app developers: encrypt everything, especially passwords. Security firm viaForensics fed some popular iPhone and Android apps through its appWatchdog tool and found that Netflix, LinkedIn, and Foursquare all stored account passwords unencrypted. Since the results were first published on the 6th, Foursquare has updated its app to obscure users' passwords, but other data (such as search history) is still vulnerable. While those three were the worst offenders, other apps also earned a big fat "fail," such as the iOS edition of Square which stores signatures, transaction amounts, and the last four digits of credit card numbers unencrypted. Most of this data would take some effort to steal, but it's not impossible for a bunch of ne'er-do-wells to create a piece malware that can harvest it. Let's just hope Netflix and LinkedIn patch this hole quickly -- last thing we need is someone discovering our secret obsession with Meg Ryan movies.
Google expands NFC check-ins, clutters more restaurant windows
Google's love affair with NFC continues to blossom, and QR codes are starting to feel like a neglected stepchild. After a successful trial run in Portland, the once-upon-a-search company is expanding its NFC check-in program to four new cities, slapping RFID "Recommended on Google" stickers on windows in Las Vegas; Madison, Wisconsin; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Austin, Texas. The company wants to be the best in the location-based service market, and NFC is its crane kick. While Foursquare and Facebook users are forced to do silly things like track down the right business in an endless list of nearby results or try and focus their cellphone's camera on a dimly lit QR code, you could simply be swiping over a sticker, scoring discounts and moving on. Provided, of course, you happen to have one of the few NFC-equipped phones on the market (such as the Nexus S), live in one of Google's five testbed cities and really want your friends to know you hit Planet Wings for lunch -- again. Full PR after the break.
New York City marks April 16th as Foursquare Day, Mayor feeling good about his chances
16 is the product of squaring four, so naturally the date of April 16th is the most logical one to be called Foursquare Day. Just why such a celebration should exist is less obvious. As it turns out, a grassroots movement of Foursquare users built up steam around the idea of dedicating a day to the online check-in service, that concept then filtered through to Foursquare's founders who decided to go "100% in on this," and now, somewhat surprisingly, so has New York City Mayor (the elected one) Mike Bloomberg. As Mike sees it, Foursquare represents a fine example of NYC's startup-friendly environment, which is why he's giving it and its heretofore informal Foursquare Day celebration the official NYC seal of approval. He even went so far as to deliver a Mayoral Proclamation to the Foursquare offices, which you can see for yourself after the break.
Boxcar Beta for Mac available, brings notifications to Mac
Today brings a delightful surprise for Mac users with Boxcar joining the Mac family. Boxcar has been the standard for getting push notifications from your social networks, email, RSS and other services on iOS devices since it launched in July of 2009, and it has been one of my favorite iPhone apps from the start. Boxcar currently supports more Twitter events than you probably have time to read, including mentions, direct messages, new followers, trending topics, Twitter list updates and keyword searches. Boxcar also supports other social networks for notifications from Facebook, check-ins from Gowalla and Foursquare, even Google Buzz.
Poll: How social is your TV watching?
Twitter and Facebook are common enough that even your grandmother probably knows what they are by now and studies have confirmed that watching TV with laptop, tablet or phone nearby is an increasingly common experience. Over the last year or so startups like GetGlue, Tunerfish, Miso, Philo and IntoNow have all tried to make checking in and other social media standbys a part of TV, while Boxee has arguably lead the way in social video sharing on connected TV platforms. So if you've added TV checkins to the Foursquare, Farmville and other data you're bombarding followers and friends with or just see them as another thing to filter out of your timeline, let us know how it's going below. %Poll-61890%
Foursquare tries out an NFC-based check-in system at its HQ
There's not exactly a lot of details on this one, but Business Insider discovered something of a surprise while touring Foursquare's New York headquarters for launch of Foursquare 3.0. It turns out that the company is already testing out an NFC-based check-in system at its HQ, which lets those with a suitable phone (such as a Nexus S) share their location simply by tapping it against a blue dot on the wall. Unfortunately, there's no indications on any plans to actually expand it beyond its own HQ, although you can bet that it's pretty high up on the list of inevitable things or the company.
EightBit goes HTML5 for SXSW
Sure, Foursquare is fun if you like that sort of thing (me, I'm too embarrassed to show my friends that I barely leave the house, let alone reveal to them where I go when I do drag myself out of my pit). But really, what you want to have is not just more fun than Foursquare offers -- you want twice as much fun. Right? And not just a cool badge or something but Cash, cold hard cash for playing the game. Right? So enter EightBit, the all-new location-based game that's going to take the mobile HTML5-space by storm just in time for SXSW. Like Foursquare it's a location-based check-in app, but instead of getting mere badges and mayorships you can win coins which, right now, just let you keep score. But eventually you'll be able to buy virtual goods in the game, and buy more coins using micro-payments. The company has planned a virtual scavenger hunt for five NES-style game cartridges (8-bit - geddit?) to coincide with SXSW in (virtual) Austin starting this weekend. Play the game, create an avatar, check in and you could win a 250 GB hard disc. [via TechCrunch]
Foursquare adds photos, comments to location check-ins
One thing that is sure to make my wife roll her eyes in disgust is when we're out somewhere and I check in to a venue using Foursquare. I enjoy using the Foursquare iPhone app to check in, gain or lose the mayorship of a location and occasionally get one of those cool badges that they award to users (I'm particularly proud of my Jobs, I'm on a boat! and JetSetter badges). The free app has just been updated and now adds two fun features -- adding photos and comments to check-ins. This is handy, since I currently have to use multiple apps to a) check in and b) send photos of delicious food to friends. Now it's all possible in one app. There's also a history page on the Foursquare website where you can see all of the places that you've visited. Comments are only viewable by your Foursquare friends, but photos that you add are added to a venue and can be seen by anyone. Considering that many iPhone users do this all with a mashup of Twitter clients, photo apps and Foursquare or Facebook, the Foursquare update is a welcome surprise. In the update notes (at right), Foursquare mentions that they're up to 5 million users. Congratulations, and thanks for the Christmas gift.
UK voice choir sings Please Retweet Me song for charity, probably has no idea what it means (video)
So here's the deal: the UK Meningitis Trust wants to help raise awareness about the disease it's dedicated to battling and has a 30-strong male voice choir at its disposal to do it with. How does it reach the widest possible audience? If your ideas include namedropping every major social media site set up over the last decade, a nod to the iPhone versus Android dichotomy, and the use of Yahoo as a bad pun, then you must be the guy responsible for putting together the video after the break. Congratulations, it's awesome. The behind-the-scenes footage with these old crooners isn't too terrible either.
Bing 2.0 brings better Facebook integration and the impressive Streetside to iPhone (video)
Microsoft just released -- or should we say, Apple just approved -- version 2.0 of the Bing search app for iOS devices. In addition to several other new features including integrated Facebook Likes on search results (really!?) and in-app checkins to Facebook and Foursquare, Bing now comes packing Streetside, something that first blew us away as Street Slide when it was still in the labs at Microsoft Research. Unlike Google's Streetview that requires a lot of forward- and back-clicking and turning in order to get a feel for a location, Streetslide provides a more comprehensive view of the shops and businesses in an area by letting you strafe down the sidewalk while zooming in and out of the buildings located on each side of the street. We took it for a brief spin (literally) and came away impressed. You won't find Streetside implemented for all locations yet (for example, San Francisco's Make-out Room was found on Streetside but the Slanted Door restaurant wasn't) but they do seem to have large swaths of major cities covered based on our brief testing of Chicago, Seattle, New York, and San Francisco. Sorry, nothing yet in London and Amsterdam but maybe you'll have better success searching your own neighborhoods. See the full list of what's new after the break in addition to a Streetside demo from Bing's architect Blaise Aguera y Arcas -- unfortunately, we're not seeing the impressive Panaroma feature he mentions in this release. Update: We've been told that Facebook Likes, like Panaroma, like totally didn't make it into the app release. It's a web search results feature only for the time being.
HootSuite for iPad now available
HootSuite for iPad is finally out of beta and available to all iPad users. We know what you're thinking, "Uh, another Twitter app for me to consider?" We feel your pain, young one. But keep reading to see why Hoot Suite is worth your attention. HootSuite offers support for three social networks: Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare. You'll be prompted through setup at launch. Once that's done, you can begin using the network you configured. On the Twitter side, you're presented with several columns: your main feed, mentions, direct messages (both sent and received) plus your favorites and your most recently sent tweets. Swiping lets you move from column to column. Tapping the Compose button brings up a new window with the usual features like a photo option, location tagging and translation. Two interesting options let you schedule a tweet to go live some time in the future, and the Contacts option lets you scan a list of your Twitter contacts for quick reference. On the Facebook side you can browse news updates and any posts that you've set to pending using a similar time-delay feature. All of your networks are listed on the left and it's easy to hop between them. Overall, the UI is quite nice and everything is legible. We especially like swiping between columns in Twitter. However, I had trouble setting up my Facebook account (I needed two attempts for some reason) and the results are frankly a bit disappointing. There are not direct messages or large photos, for example. As for Foursquare, I don't use it so I couldn't say. The app is free and universal, so those with an iPad and an iPhone need only grab the one download. If you've been enjoying HootSuite on your iPhone, just grab the update for some nice bug fixes. While it's not enough to tear me away from my preferred iPad Twitter client, it's certainly worth a look for those still searching. [Via The Next Web]
Foursquare debuts special "I voted" badge for 2010 midterm election
Hey, if you don't already know, tomorrow is election day. And if you're the kind of person that needs a present for doing things you should or would probably do regardless, well, this one's for you. Foursquare's just announced a special badge just to show that you voted in tomorrow's election! You can grab the 2010 election badge anytime tomorrow by voting and then checking in at your local polling place. The company is teaming up with a host of other organizations for real-time voting analytics as well, so if you're a numbers junkie, be sure to check out the source link.
Foursquare check-in from space makes the mayor of Blue Bottle seem rather lame
Sure, we long ago realized that you can't say Foursquare without the word "square," but in this case it only took an appearance of the International Space Station to arouse our interest. Indeed, when we heard that the current ISS commander (and enthusiastic Twitter user) Douglas Wheelock beat us to unlocking the NASA Explorer Badge, we realized that it's true: astronauts have all the fun. And the best part? The badge entitles him to a free "scoop" of space ice cream! But fear not, fans of location-based social networking games, 'cos this is only the beginning: NASA is teaming up with the company to create additional locations around the country.
First Look: A totally Unsocial app
Sometimes it seems like the last thing we need is another social networking app, but how about being Unsocial? Unsocial (free) is a new iPhone app described as the unholy spawn of LinkedIn and Foursquare. In other words, it's oriented towards business networking, like LinkedIn, and location-specific networking, like Foursquare. The new app and service came out this morning, and according to the developers, it's focused more on the people you don't currently know, but should. The launch today is a beta, and it's currently only available to folks in the San Francisco Bay Area. The eventual idea is that when you're at conferences or just wandering around a city business center, you can have Unsocial search for people nearby who you might want to connect with -- people who meet certain search criteria based on smart tags and user profiles. For example, when I'm at Macworld Expo 2011 in San Francisco in a few months, I might only want to meet with Mac developers who meet a specific criteria. I'll set up Unsocial, which then alerts me when those people are nearby, and I can use built-in messaging to say "Hi" and specify a place to meet. Conferences can also supply Unsocial with agenda information, speaker profiles, and official twitter feeds, making the app much more useful to conference-goers who use the app. Unsocial is an interesting concept, and one that I look forward to trying out.
Foursquare app gets a version bump
Being the geek that I am, I always have time to annoy my wife by checking into venues with Foursquare whenever we go somewhere. The free location-based social networking iPhone app gained even more awesomeness (their description, not mine) today with the release of version 2.0. What's new? A to-do list for organizing your explorations. You can search for a location, and then add it to your to-do list. This would be handy for reminding yourself about restaurants that friends have tipped you off to. To-dos can also be added via websites, if they embed the button on their page (think Instapaper for location-based to-dos). Another new feature is that friends, tips, and to-do items can now be displayed on a map, nice for figuring out where you were planning on going, where your friends have gone off to, and what you were going to do when you got there. This feature ought to be popular with aging Americans like myself. The venue pages have also been updated, with large, easily-found links for the current mayor's profile, any tips that have been left, and a one-tap button for calling a venue. The mini-gallery below features some screenshots from version 2 of Foursquare. Enjoy! %Gallery-102825%
CE-Oh no he didn't!: Foursquare's Crowley calls Places 'boring,' becomes mayor of Bittersville
You don't have to make a physical product to be a snippy CEO, and Foursquare co-founder and chief officer Dennis Crowley is proving that. He's been playing with the recently launched Facebook Places, saying "it's not that great or interesting," and that it offers "barely any incentives for users to keep coming back and telling their friends where they are." We're going to go ahead and figure that's because Facebook isn't in the business of making games, rather in creating APIs that let others create games that capture the minds and the clicks of its teeming masses of users. In other words, don't be surprised if mafiosos start competing to become Dons of this or that Italian joint, virtual farmers rush to plant their crops in the most verdant fields in your neighborhood, and your Feed gets way more annoying than you ever thought possible.
