Foursquare has announced a new feature which allows users to check into major events, a task users typically fulfill by checking in at various locations and then typing a message so friends know why they are at those venues.
On their official Foursquare blog post they wrote:
“It’s one of the most common checkins on Foursquare: you head off to a movie theater, check in, and type in ‘Harry Potter’ to tell people what you’re seeing. Or check in to a stadium and shout ‘Patriots game’ or ‘Lady Gaga concert.”
Company officials went on to add:
“In moments like this, a place is often more than just a place; so today, we’re starting to pull major events into our database.”
Facebook launched their own event-check-in platform in April, however Foursquare doesn’t have access to user inputted event creation the way Facebook does so they are instead relying on thousands of partners to gather information about movies, sporting events and other gathering at various different venues throughout the United States.
Foursquare says their first partner event check-ins include information from MovieTickets.com, SongKick and ESPN. While three partners hardly seems like a giant effort, those three providers will give the system information about more than 50,000 venues over the next several months.
Currently event check-ins are only available for iPhone users, however Foursquare officials plan to launch the system on Android and other mobile device operating systems in the near future.
What type of venues do you believe will most likely benefit from Foursquare event check-ins?
