Foursquare gets a business model with “search ads for the real world”
Facebook’s “Sponsored Stories”. Twitter’s “Promoted Tweets”. Tumblr’s “Sponsors” in Radar and Spotlight. A pattern is forming in how social media companies charge advertisers to promote their “organic” postings.
The latest to flip the revenue switch in this way is Foursquare.
More than three years after the location-led app took the South by South West Interactive festival by storm, “Promoted Updates” are Foursquare’s first big ad product. Read more
Tech news from around the web:
MasterCard is to invest in mFoundry, a company that provides mobile banking solutions for more than 500 US banks, TechCrunch reports. As part of the deal, mFoundry will offer MasterCard’s PayPass Near Field Communication technology to the banks and credit unions it works with. Read more
Tech news from around the web:
Google+ is now open to the public, the Los Angeles Times reports. After 12 weeks of field trials, the social network is still technically in a ‘beta stage’ however, with nine new features being added this week and more planned for the future.
Location-based app Foursquare has just clocked up a billion check-ins, says TechCrunch. On top of this, Foursquare has launched a new version of its mobile app for the iPhone and Android handsets. Read more
Tech news from around the web:
Research in Motion is in talks with the four largest record companies about launching a new music service to run on top of the company’s instant message service, BlackBerry Messenger, according to CNET. At the moment there are very few details as to how the music service would work within BBM but it is expected to be launched within the next few weeks, sources told CNET. Read more
Tech news from around the web:
Location-based service Foursquare is to start incorporating daily deals from social shopping companies such as Groupon, LivingSocial, Gilt Groupe into its product, Mashable reports. Foursqaure plans to pass on daily coupons from its partners to the service’s users — taking a cut of the revenue along the way. Read more
Amazon cloud occludes Foursquare, others
Several popular social networking services were knocked out on Thursday due to problems with cloud services provided by Amazon. The outages for the likes of Foursquare, Hootsuite, Quora and Reddit illustrates the dependence of many startups on rented remote computing power and the widespread disruption that can be caused if a single cloud provider has problems with its network. Read more
Facebook Places eats Foursquare’s discount lunch
Facebook Places, launched just five months ago, already appears to be sucking marketing dollars away from needy location-based startups such as Foursquare and Gowalla , according to a new survey. Responses from more than 8,000 local business owners in the US to a MerchantCircle quarterly questionnaire also suggest group-buying sites are failing to gain much traction versus traditional online marketing destinations such as Facebook and Google’s AdWords. Read more
From around the web:
London’s Foursquare addicts explain the appeal of the super swarm badge
A little bit of Foursquare history was made in London last night. The UK’s first “super swarm” badge was awarded to more than 300 users of the location game. They all checked into the Jewel Bar in Piccadilly, with no other goal than to win the badge. Read more
Facebook Places: the check-in heard ’round the world
As my colleague David Gelles wrote earlier today, Facebook has finally announced its long-expected location service, Places. It’s only available in the US so far but the rest of the world should be getting it through Facebook’s iPhone app and touchscreen site in the next few months.
Places provides very similar a service to the “check in” function provided by Foursquare – which turned down a Facebook takeover earlier this year – but with Facebook’s trademark simplicity and clean design. The main enhancement is that Facebook users can tell the site when their friends are with them at a bar or school, in the same way they can tag them in photos.
It’s a big moment for Facebook, but also for the check-in itself, which alongside the Like button is quickly becoming one of the internet’s most common ways to interact. As well as Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp and other location-based services, you can now check-in to the TV show you’re watching (through Miso) or even the dinner you’re eating (thorough Foodspotting). Read more
| About this blog | Blog guide |
Richard Waters has headed the FT's San Francisco bureau since 2002 and covers Google and Microsoft, among other things. A former New York bureau chief for the FT, he is intrigued by Silicon Valley's unique financial and business culture, and is looking forward to covering his second Tech Bust.
Chris Nuttall has been online and messing around with computers for more than 20 years and since 2004 has reported from the FT's San Francisco bureau on semiconductors, video games, consumer electronics and all things interwebby.
Maija Palmer has been writing about technology for the FT since 1999 and is fascinated by cybercrime, privacy and all the other issues of the information society. Based in London, she covers European tech companies and hopes that they won't all get acquired by American rivals.
Robin Kwong is the FT's technology, media and telecoms page editor in London. Formerly he was the Taipei correspondent and wrote about the companies that manufacture the vast majority of the world's computers and gadgets. He is interested in the intricacies of the technology supply chain and how China is increasingly changing the tech landscape.
Tim Bradshaw is the FT's digital media correspondent, and has just moved from London to join our team in San Francisco. He has covered start-ups such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as the online ambitions of more established media companies, such as the BBC iPlayer. He also covers the advertising, marketing and video-game industries. Tim has been writing about technology, business and finance since 2003.
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