Many have tried to replicate their success, but few are poised to capitalize on the release of an API quite like Foursquare, the location-based social network and game that is proving to be more useful by the day.
The company has raised funds, released business services, and even partnered with the Bay Area Rapid Transit system. Now, they've officially released their API and the world will finally see why location is everything.
Here's what Foursquare wrote about today's news:
We’re super excited to announce that our API is now live.
It’s something that’s been in testing with a small group of developers for the last few months. Even during this phase, we’ve seen you guys make all sorts of interesting applications using our data:
- an Android app
- a venue popularity tracker: SocialGreat
- a foursquare layer on Layar
- a location-based game: MobZombies
- an integration with Peek Mobile devices: PeekMaps
- an RFID/Oyster card-based checkin system: FourTap
- a way to find deals nearby based on your check-in history: Yipit
- a Wordpress plugin
- a Firefox plugin
- a check-in diary: Last Night’s Checkins
Foursquare's Potential
You may recall that I've previously delved into why Foursquare has the potential to follow in Twitter's famous footsteps. The parallels are quite obvious, as demonstrated by the following passage from the aforementioned post:
And then an intangible and metaphorical wave happened, where one by one more and more people started to tweet, started to figure out for themselves why it was important, and then repeat the same cycle as the early adopters before them. Then along came the media. They were quick to judge, full of fantastic puns, and naysayers, until they started to use it and figure it out too. Long story short, Twitter, as simple as it is, was (and to some extent still is) misunderstood.
Foursquare’s very much in the same boat as Twitter was two years ago. The early adopters have started to drink the kool-aide, myself included, but for the most part it remains a service completely misunderstood, and even mocked from time to time.
The API release is one of the most important pieces to the company living up to its potential. Why? Simply because it allows developers to make location and places relevant, and they've already done so with a few purposeful applications.