Foursquare Ups Their Game in the Search Engine Race

I use Foursquare and I love it. There I said it…. It’s a fun way to learn about new areas and interact with friends. I’ve been wondering for some time what the next move would be for the social media site. They did seem lost for a moment.

But my questions have now been answered; complete with a hint at what might be a great monetization strategy. It appears that Foursquare is taking an interest in search. While this is case, Foursquare offers a much different search experience than other major players such as Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. I could write a whole blog post on the subtleties of these search engines (in fact I think I will) but for this post we will focus on Foursquare. For Foursquare it is all about locations on the run and they do a darn good job with it. This new update plays right into this offering, let’s take a look.

According to Search Engine Land, “This morning, Foursquare is rolling out version 6.0 of its app. It puts a new search box “front and center” at the top of the screen to emphasize the local search capabilities of the app. It also adds or enhances other features to make it easier to find places and things to do.”

Let’s take a look at the old version of the app.

Here is the new version.

Personally, I am a fan of Foursquare for the rewards, the gamification and the amazing local results. I expect this app to be around for a long time and believe this new update to be an excellent enhancement.