Foursquare Swarm

Last updated
Foursquare Swarm
Developer(s) Foursquare Labs
Initial releaseMay 5, 2014;9 years ago (2014-05-05)
Stable release(s)
iOS 6.12.15 / February 12, 2023;10 months ago (2023-02-12) [1]
Android 6.10.46 / February 6, 2023;10 months ago (2023-02-06) [2]
Platform iOS, Android
Available in12 languages
Type Social networking service
Website www.swarmapp.com OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

Foursquare Swarm is a mobile app that allows users to share their locations with their friends and create a record of their experiences in a personal lifelog. Swarm launched for iOS and Android devices on May 15, 2014. A spin-off from and companion app to Foursquare City Guide, Swarm allows users to check-in to a given location, [3] and see who is nearby. [4] These check-ins are chronologically listed to create a personal lifelog for each user, which serves as a digital library for all the places they have been, in a searchable database that can be revisited and shared.

Contents

Location and check-in data collected in Swarm are used to improve a user's recommendations in Foursquare City Guide. Splitting check-ins and general location sharing in to the separate Swarm app was designed to let the main Foursquare app focus on exploring and discovering information on locations, in a Yelp-like fashion. [5] Swarm supports checking in with photos or stickers attached to it, and allows broadcasting of check-ins to other social networks including Facebook and Twitter. Swarm features include a shareable interactive personalized map, and unique stats like total lifetime check-ins, number of unique categories visited, and data on streaks and Foursquare 'mayorships' (a feature of the platforms gamification elements).

Features

Swarm 5.0, released on iOS August 8, 2017 and on Android August 16, 2017, was the most significant update to the app’s core functionality since launching in 2014, focusing more on lifelogging.

Major features include check-ins, [6] [ non-primary source needed ] [7] messaging, [8] stickers, [9] [ non-primary source needed ] challenges, [10] [ non-primary source needed ] 'mayorships', [11] [ non-primary source needed ] history search, [12] and merchandise.

Reception

CNET described the app as a "bold move", and praised it for removing some of the "clutter" of Foursquare and focusing on letting the user "quickly see where your friends are and make plans". [13] The redesign was unpopular with some existing Foursquare users, who complained about its lack of gamification elements, and the need to download two apps for what used to be contained in a single Foursquare app. [14]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lifelog</span> Personal record of ones daily life

A lifelog is a personal record of one's daily life in a varying amount of detail, for a variety of purposes. The record contains a comprehensive dataset of a human's activities. The data could be used to increase knowledge about how people live their lives. In recent years, some lifelog data has been automatically captured by wearable technology or mobile devices. People who keep lifelogs about themselves are known as lifeloggers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Foursquare City Guide</span> Location-based social networking service

Foursquare City Guide, commonly known as Foursquare, is a local search-and-discovery mobile app developed by Foursquare Labs Inc. The app provides personalized recommendations of places to go near a user's current location based on users' previous browsing history and check-in history.

Gowalla is a location-based social networking service. It originally launched in 2007 and closed in 2012, but was relaunched on March 10, 2023. Users are able to check in at "Spots" in their local vicinity, either through a dedicated mobile application or through the mobile website. Checking-in will sometimes produce virtual "items" for the user, some of which are developed to be promotional tools for the game's partners. As of November 2010 there were approximately 600,000 users. In January 2021, Gowalla made an announcement that the app is coming back in 2022.

Clicker was an Internet video directory and search company based in Los Angeles, California. Their website aimed to be the TV Guide for all full episodes of programs available to watch on the Web. It is owned by CBS Interactive.

Telenav, Inc. is a wireless location-based services corporation that provides services including Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite navigation, local search, automotive navigation solutions, mobile advertising, enterprise mobility and workflow automation. The company’s headquarters are located in Santa Clara, California in the United States with additional offices in the U.S., Germany, Japan, Romania, China, and Brazil.

tvtag was a social networking website and mobile app for television fans. Users "check into" the shows, movies and sports that they consumed using a website, mobile website, or mobile app.

Viber, or Rakuten Viber, is a cross-platform voice over IP (VoIP) and instant messaging (IM) software application owned by Japanese multinational company Rakuten, provided as freeware for the Google Android, iOS, Microsoft Windows, Apple macOS and Linux platforms. Users are registered and identified through a cellular telephone number, although the service is accessible on desktop platforms without needing mobile connectivity. In addition to instant messaging it allows users to exchange media such as images and video records, and also provides a paid international landline and mobile calling service called Viber Out. As of 2018, there are over a billion registered users on the network.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Messenger (software)</span> American instant messaging app

Messenger is an American proprietary instant messaging app and platform developed by Meta Platforms. Originally developed as Facebook Chat in 2008, the company revamped its messaging service in 2010, released standalone iOS and Android apps in 2011, and released standalone Facebook Portal hardware for Messenger calling in 2018. In April 2015, Facebook launched a dedicated website interface, Messenger.com, and separated the messaging functionality from the main Facebook app, allowing users to use the web interface or download one of the standalone apps. In April 2020, Facebook released a Messenger desktop app for Windows and macOS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Untappd</span> Geosocial networking service and mobile phone application

Untappd is a geosocial networking service and mobile phone application founded by Greg Avola and Tim Mather that allows its users to check in as they drink beers, and share these check-ins and their locations with their friends. It incorporates aspects of gamification.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jiepang</span>

Jiepang (Chinese: 街旁; pinyin: Jiēpáng) was a Chinese social networking service for mobile devices, such as smartphones. Users can download the Jiepang app to track and share life moments with friends. In July 2013, Jiepang launched an all new design in version 5.0, which evolved from its origins as China's leading location-based service (LBS) for the "check in". Jiepang helps users record and track all of their life activities, connect with friends in specific moments and explore communities of people that have similar interests.

Nearby was a location-based social networking service. Nearby was originally launched in June 2010.. The site closed in September 2021 following a significant data break.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digg Reader</span>

Digg Reader was a news aggregator operated by Digg. The reader was released on June 26, 2013 as a response to Google Reader shutting down. The reader was web-based and also had iOS and Android applications as well as a Google Chrome extension. The beta for the reader has received mostly positive reviews. On March 26, 2018, Digg shut down Digg Reader.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Life360</span> Location based freemium app for families

Life360 Inc. is a San Francisco, California–based American information technology company that provides location-based services, including sharing and notifications, to consumers globally. Its main service is called Life360, a family social networking app released in 2008. It is a location-based service designed primarily to enable friends and family members to share their location with each other.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Facebook Paper</span> Standalone mobile app by Facebook

Facebook Paper was a standalone mobile app created by Facebook, only for iOS, that intended to serve as a phone-based equivalent of a newspaper or magazine. The app was announced by Facebook on January 30, 2014, and released for iOS on February 3, 2014. The iPhone app appeared in the iOS App Store as "Paper – stories from Facebook"; there was no iPad version. Facebook shut Paper down on July 29, 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timehop</span> Smartphone app that reminds users of their past activity

Timehop is an application for smartphones that collects old photos and posts from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Apple Photos, Google Photos and Dropbox photos and distributes the past. The company was founded in 2011 by Jonathan Wegener and Benny Wong. As of January 2016, Timehop had 12 million users.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hike Messenger</span> Instant messaging app

Hike Messenger, also known as Hike Sticker Chat, was a multifunctional Indian freeware application offering cross-platform instant messaging (IM) and Voice over IP (VoIP) services that was launched on December 12, 2012, by Kavin Bharti Mittal and is now owned by Hike Private Limited. Hike functioned offline through SMS. The app registration used a standard one-time password (OTP) based authentication process. Hike was estimated to be worth $1.4 billion and had more than 100 million registered users.

Picsart is an Armenian-American technology company based in Miami, Florida and Yerevan, Armenia that develops the Picsart suite of online photo and video editing applications, with a social creative community. The platform allows users to take and edit pictures and videos, draw with layers, and share the images on Picsart and other social networks. It is one of the world's most popular apps, with reportedly more than 1 billion downloads across 180 countries.

Facebook Stories are short user-generated photo or video collections that can be uploaded to the user's Facebook. Facebook Stories were created on March 28, 2017. They are considered a second news feed for the social media website. It is focused around Facebook's in-app camera which allows users to add fun filters and Snapchat-like lenses to their content as well as add visual geolocation tags to their photos and videos. The content is able to be posted publicly on the Facebook app for only 24 hours or can be sent as a direct message to a Facebook friend.

Foursquare Labs Inc., commonly known as Foursquare, is a geolocation technology company and data cloud platform based in the United States. Founded by Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai in 2009, the company rose to prominence with the launch of its local search-and-discovery mobile app. The app, Foursquare City Guide, popularized the concept of real-time location sharing and checking-in.

References

  1. "Foursquare Swarm on the App Store". App Store . Apple Inc. February 14, 2023. Retrieved February 14, 2023.
  2. "Foursquare Swarm on the Play Store". Google Play . Google. February 14, 2023. Retrieved February 14, 2023.
  3. "Foursquare's Swarm App Tells Your Friends Generally Where You Are", Gizmodo , 2014-05-01
  4. "Foursquare's Swarm And The Rise Of The Invisible App", TechCrunch , 2014-05-15
  5. "Meet Swarm: Foursquare's ambitious plan to split its app in two", The Verge , 2014-05-01
  6. "Mentioning and checking in friends on Swarm", Foursquare Blog, 2014-05-20
  7. "Swarm now lets users check-in without sharing their location". TechCrunch. 21 April 2016. Retrieved 2020-05-19.
  8. Swarm Now Has Direct Messages But No More Plans, 16 March 2015
  9. "Swarm on Twitter" . Retrieved 2015-10-07.
  10. If every day is a game, then there should be prizes, right? Introducing Swarm Challenges.
  11. "Mayorships and more: How Swarm is going to make your experiences more fun and playful", Foursquare Blog, 2014-05-09
  12. Crook, Jordan (8 August 2017). "Swarm kills the clutter, focuses on logging location | TechCrunch" . Retrieved 2017-09-07.
  13. Sarah Mitroff (2014-05-15). "Swarm review". CNET. Retrieved 2015-04-20.
  14. "Some Loyal Foursquare Users Are Checking Out After Swarm Spinoff", NPR , 2014-07-30