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Location Based

By Ben Popper 7/14/11 4:23pm

Foursquare’s Chief Engineer @HarryH Tells All on the Internet

If you want things done right, sometimes you have to do them yourself. Yes, Dennis Crowley, co-founder of Foursquare, and the public face of the company, wrote the original code that powered the service when it debuted at SXSW in March of 2009. But when Foursquare’s first hire, Harry Heymann, arrived at the company, he didn’t waste any time.

“I didn’t write the original version of the Foursquare code that went live with launch in March ’09. Dennis did that and it was in somewhat poorly written PHP (Dens will be the first to tell you that programming isn’t his strong suit),” Mr. Heymann wrote on Reddit’s IAmA this afternoon. “After Dennis and Naveen started the company in 2009 I was their first hire. I started by re-writing the entire server as fast as I could.” Read More

By Ben Popper 7/12/11 7:54am

Location Based

Foursquare to Serve up Daily Deals From LivingSocial, Gilt Groupe and AT&T

Just when Betabeat goes and starts ragging on Foursquare for not being aggressive enough about generating some real revenue, BAM, they announce a partnership with some of the biggest names in the daily deal and flash sale world. According to Spencer Ante at the Wall Street Journal, Foursquare will remarket bargins from these services, using its intimate knowledge of the shopping habits and current location of over 10 million users to target customers who might engage with these deals. Read More

By Ben Popper 6/29/11 8:26am

Location Based

Fourcraft Turns Your Check-In Action into a Battle to Dominate New York

Gamifying the gamification! A team cooked up Fourcraft, a mashup of Foursquare and Risk, at this weekend’s Game Hack Day at General Assembly. Read More

By Ben Popper 6/24/11 4:44pm

Location Based

Foursquare Raising $50 M. at $600 M. Valuation

Foursquare announced on its blog today that it has closed a series C round of funding for $50 million. It’s mostly current investors doubling down, with Andreeson Horowitz leading the round and Union Square and OATV re-upping as well. Spark Capital is joining for the first time. Read More

By Ben Popper 6/20/11 9:16am

Location Based

Foursquare’s New Growth Strategy as it Hits 10 M.? Users who Don’t Check In

Ahhh lurkers, where would the internet be without them. While Foursquare has growing steadily, hitting the 10 million user mark today, co-founder Dennis Crowley say that to truly hit scale, Foursquare needs to find a way to offer value to users who don’t check in. Read More

By Ben Popper 6/08/11 9:21am

Location Based

As Shuttle Flights End, Foursquare Sending One Lucky Check-In to Outer Space

Dennis Crowley is always saying that the original idea behind Dodgeball and Foursquare was to get people away from their computers. Checking in was a way to influence and encourage real world exploration.

Now Foursquare is partnering with ubiquitous mini-mart 7-11 to send one lucky user on a commercial space flight. The 888,888th person to log their location in front of the Slushee machine will win a free trip to the beyond. Read More

By Ben Popper 6/07/11 3:09pm

Location Based

Untappd Flips Script, Makes Acquisition Before Raising Funds

Untappd lets users check in to what they’re drinking, earn badges, see what previous stool sitters have swilled and where they can find rare craft beers nearby. The app just crossed the one million check-in mark and decided to celebrate by acquiring fellow beer check-in service Redpint.

“We’re a self-funded project for now,” explained co-founder Greg Avola, who is based in New York and works full time at Morgan Stanley. “Maybe it’s doing things backwards, but we thought the purchase of Redpint would make us look more professional to investors.” Read More

By Ben Popper 12:44pm

Location Based

The Secret Sauce in Sonar.me – Making the “Meatspace” Mainstream

One of the great themes among New York’s location based start-ups is that the services, which rely on the mobile web, generate a lot of their real value offline, by encouraging people to try new things and change their routine behavior.

Sonar.me, which is one of six finalists for the $50,000 prize at this Read More

By Ben Popper 5/23/11 11:31am

Location Based

Foursquare Added to Facebook Phone and Working on Groupon Partnership

Two quick bits of news this morning which highlight how Central Foursquare has become to the location based market.

INQ, which launched the so called “Facebook Phone”, with the social graph built right into the OS, has decided to use Foursquare as the default service on INQ for integrating location into the OS. Considering Read More

By Ben Popper 5/20/11 11:31am

Location Based

Foursquare, Growing Fast, Needs New Superusers

Over the last year Foursquare’s data base has grown from one million venues to more than 15 million. At the same time, according to watchdog blog About Foursquare, the number of active superusers, who help to clean and organize this data, has actually declined.

Once upon a time very active users were promoted to Read More

BetaBeat

Location Based

Foursquare’s Chief Engineer @HarryH Tells All on the Internet

Foursquare to Serve up Daily Deals From LivingSocial, Gilt Groupe and AT&T

Fourcraft Turns Your Check-In Action into a Battle to Dominate New York

Foursquare Raising $50 M. at $600 M. Valuation

Foursquare’s New Growth Strategy as it Hits 10 M.? Users who Don’t Check In

As Shuttle Flights End, Foursquare Sending One Lucky Check-In to Outer Space

Untappd Flips Script, Makes Acquisition Before Raising Funds

The Secret Sauce in Sonar.me – Making the “Meatspace” Mainstream

Foursquare Added to Facebook Phone and Working on Groupon Partnership

Foursquare, Growing Fast, Needs New Superusers

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