Eleven months after checking-out of the check-in game, Foursquare is re-gamifying its Swarm app by bringing back Mayorships.
That's right Swarm fans, you can now compete to be Mayor of a location on Swarm, not just against your friends -- but against all users.
The move was announced on Monday on Foursquare's blog and in an update on iOS and Android.
Foursquare famously split its app into two parts, Swarm and Foursquare, last May. In July, it made the switch official, forcing users to check-in using Swarm.
The problem with Swarm -- as we pointed out at the time -- was that it took a lot of the fun out of Foursquare. You no longer had leaderboards, badges or mayorships. In fact, the entire game aspect Foursquare spent more than five years building disappeared overnight.
Slowly, but surely, however, those game features are starting to return to Swarm. Leadership boards returned first, appearing last fall. Then in May, Swarm got check-in badges again.
With the re-implementation of proper mayorships (Swarm previously allowed you to compete to be the Mayor just with your friends -- an idea that sort of fell flat when it became apparent that none of your friends actually used Swarm anymore), the Swarm is now decidedly similar to the old Foursquare.
As for Foursquare itself, as Dennis Crowley said at TechCrunch Disrupt in May, he feels the service is finally living up to his initial vision and goal for the service.
The question is, amidst departing staff and questions over revenue, is it too little too late?
I just checked-in at the office for the first time in months outside of Instagram -- and I did it because I want to get that crown.