Foursquare – the app and data

Foursquare was founded in 2009 by Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai. It was a reimagined version of a similar service, Dodgeball, founded by Crowley in his graduate studies days. Dodgeball was an attempt to help the user interact with his neighborhood using his phone and primarily using SMS messages:

Foursquare main page. Image source: By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43651932

Foursquare continued that paradigm and tried to use the new features of smartphones for achieving the same interaction, the most important of these features being the GPS.

Tip

The initial rise to fame of Foursquare was related to its innovative check-in feature, which allowed a user to share his/her location at any venue. This feature was quite similar to Facebook's own check-in feature. Although with the launch of Foursquare 8.0, the check-in feature has been removed from the Foursquare application.

A unique feature of Foursquare data is the tips...