Earlier this month, the location-based social network Foursquare revealed that it had raised a $1.35 million seed round of funding. Almost immediately, they used the money to purchase an important domain for them: foursquare.com (previously, they were found at playfoursquare.com). Today, they revealed another project that the money is being used for: A redesign.
A new homepage went live today with a significantly improved look and feel. While the graphics have been prettied up, the main new feature is a constantly moving river of updates from the service. This includes when users write tips for venues, unlock badges, and become the mayors of places. There are also prominent links to its iPhone and Android apps (along with the mobile web version for other phones), and a link for businesses to learn more about how they can utilize the service.
Foursquare used some of its funding to hire the design firm Hard Candy Shell to create this new homepage, Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley confirmed to us (the two companies actually share office space in New York City). But this is just the beginning of Foursquare’s redesign plans.
Currently, there is no way for users to really interact with the service through its website. You can see things like venues and user profiles, but there is no way to check-in a place, the main function of the site. That should soon change. When I asked Crowley if this new design was part of a larger effort to turn foursquare.com into a usable web app, he replied that “it’s all in the works.”
Of course, the mobile apps will continue to be the focus (aside from the iPhone and Android apps, versions for Blackberry and Windows Mobile should be out soon), but Foursquare users will undoubtedly welcome news of a usable website. Previously, if you wanted to do something as simple as accept friends, it would require a full page reload, which was annoying. Now, features like this have been AJAXified, like a proper web app.
Currently, you’ll only see this new Foursquare homepage when you are logged out of the site.
Not to rip on 4S or HCS but it’s strikingly similar to Brightkite’s homepage. Either way, they’re both excellent pages…
Yup – structure / layout-wise, it’s a direct rip. FAIL.
reminds me more of loopt actually than brightkite, but it seems pretty standard in the location space to use icon markers with bubbles.
…and the rectangular intro header, single column ‘recent activity’ stream, sidebar with mobile devices listed up top.
Very nice!
Jesus… what an incredible waste of time. That might have been fun when I was 13 with no responsibilities…
but now that you’re 14, too much work to do?
I agree. I don’t get why MG keeps writing about this. If you look at the iPhone store most of the reviews are 1 star. Were you roommates with the founders or something? Your bias towards this company is obvious. Also, doesn’t the Going iPhone app do the same thing except it doesn’t crash every other time.
We all need to make a living and MA needs to pay his salary
here you go, review of both going and gowalla. and for the record, going did crash on me several times, and was a pain in the ass to sign up for. i like gowalla a lot though.
http://www.tech...-own-this-town/
smart move. location is everything.
guesstimated bit of money for the purchase of foursquare.com – low 6 figures?, 7-10 percent of funding?
foursquare sucks
It cost Facebook 200K to change their name from TheFacebook.com to Facebook.com
Smart move for 4square.com ….whoops….I mean foursquare.com
definitely.
What’s odd to me is that Fadsquare isn’t even in the top twenty rankings for iPhone social media apps. It’s not popular. And it’s about as hard to code as a URL shortener. Hardly newsworthy.
Most people I’ve spoken to use it for a few checkins then realize it’s tedious, boring, and unrewarding. They leave.
popular amongst the 10 or 15 techcrunch writers out there. fad it is.
yeah, we all just check in at the office. kind of lame.
I think Four square is great… it involves the physical community as opposed to little 300X300 pixel pics that represent bits of information that represent a physical person. Its the direction I hope technology moves us closer towards… physically being somewhere with someone, as opposed to virtually being there in cyber spirit. A great step in that respect… But…
I think Foursquare could’ve invested a couple bucks and revamped that piss ass logo they got. What the hell is that? It looks like that alien that just washed up in Panama (http://bit.ly/EmSAy) doing the “jerk” (http://bit.ly/TKUNu) out of a sewer grate while dodging a bruised golf ball. I don’t get it. Those boys need to throw a “king for the day” logo contest… I’d submit.
Anyways, just my 2 cents… not that they’re even worth that…
Wow, a lot of the posters here are way off. FourSquare is definitely a service that has a bright future. The only reason it may not get huge is because Facebook will buy or copy it. But this is clearly the long-awaited geo-location approach that actually might work.
agreed.
All my friends stopped using Foursquare. Maybe a usable website will bring us back, but I doubt it.
A) Your audience among the general mobile carrying public is limited because you can work only on the iPhone and Android
B) Among the iPhone and Android carrying public, your service gets further limited as it appeals to only retards with the IQs of pre-pubescent girls
So how many users are you left with? Just about the number of TC staff
@puranjay I find your insinuation that pre-pubsescent girls somehow have low IQs very insulting. Pity that you were surrounded by dumb kids in your youth.
I grew up alone in a cave in the Afghan mountains
femmebot, pre-pubescent anything (girl or boy) has a far lower IQ than a fully grown adult.
thanks for this blog
Pretty interesting, but I think I found something better. Yesterday I was in South Beach, Miami and I came across this service call TextToParty and i think there website is http://www.texttoparty.com. But It wasn’t base on a website.. I was told to use my cell phone and text the word PARTY to 88089 and the results were amazing.. I instantly fell inlove with it……
I wish there were here in new york..
Tasti Dlite recently collaborated w/ foursquare, providing discounts to those who “check-in” at their locations. I know various bars around new york are doing similar things. THIS kind thing is where it can get big.
If twitter is worth a billion I shudder to know what 4 [ ] could be worth.
Hey @dens wanna sell me 2k worth of preferred stock??