Foursquare: Whereabouts + 5 Daily Deals

Foursquare is no longer just a social network to follow the parties that interest you. Of course you can still tell "the world" that you are heading to the near by Subway, only now you might get a few more sandwich places choices, targeted to your whereabouts, from the site.

The thing is that the local social app maker foursquare has signed revenue-sharing distribution partnerships to target deals sites to its users’ locations.

It stroke the deal with coupon sites, such as LivingSocial, Gilt City, AT&T Interactive, BuyWithMe and Zozi — to users of its iPhone, Android and BlackBerry applications in the U.S., UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — that would now customize deals to your needs. (So, the more you'd attend those Dupont Circle's little book shops, the more you'd get coupons for the nearby shops and books...)


AllThingsDigital says that these partnerships are a huge test for foursquare, which has 10 million registered users but is working to move on from its early gamification tricks to “making the world easier to use.” The company has been wanting to proactively target deals rather than waiting for users to manually check in.

If foursquare can target relevant deals based on its users’ interest in exploring the world around them, its mobile and social distribution could potentially be far more effective than the email lists and banner ads that daily deals sites currently rely on.

However, Groupon is after the same goal with its new product Groupon Now.



The image here depicts how foursquare’s deals currently work — users are occasionally rewarded with special offers from which foursquare does not take a revenue split.