Going to jail is no longer a good strategy

As Dennis Crowley pointed out on Twitter yesterday, foursqaure's robust API has allowed developers to create thousands of interesting apps that are running primarily and in some cases entirely off the services data.

We already told you about Fourcraft, which turned New York into a giant game of risk. Today it's Foursquaropoly (tough name), which layers the basic principles of the classic board game Monopoly on top of Big Apple check-ins.

Players are given $10,000 to start and can purchase a building if they check-in and find its not owned yet. After that, anyone who checks in pays rent to the owner. The owner must pay an upkeep on the property. Price, rent and upkeep are all determined by the popularity of the venue, with the most well trafficked check-ins, like the Empire State building.

Foursquare's API is a fascinating business play. The more users interacting with the service through consumer-facing apps, the better their data will become. And over time, that data will become valuable enough that it can be licensed out to other companies that want to use it for business.

You can find out more about the game and its creators here.

Foursquaropoly from Deanna McDonald on Vimeo.