Foursquare has just updated its app for mobile devices, adding a friend check-in option, something Foursquare says users have wanted for a while.Foursquare has been monitoring user activity, noticing that a lot of people, 90% in fact, are using the mention feature to say who they’re with. Foursquare announced the update in a blog post yesterday:
“So, starting today, we’re making it easy for you to save your and your friends’ time – you can now check in your friends when you’re out together. Instead of you and four friends each pulling out your phone to check in at dinner, now one of you can do it for everyone. Less time spent on your phone, more time enjoying the moment.” To check friends in, users just tap the “I’m with…” button then search for and select their friends. If a friend checks you in, you will be sent a notification asking for your permission. You only need to get a friend’s approval once: from them on, every time you check them in somewhere, they’ll have to tap the delete button to get rid of it. If you don’t get a friend’s permission to check them in, they’ll just be mentioned as before.
If you friend checks you in somewhere at the same time as you check yourself in, yours is the only check-in that gets shown, “so you can always get your photo in, or tell everyone what you’re doing”. So, presumably, if two people check each other in at the same place and time, their check-ins will actually only show themselves.
Foursquare introduced the update “so people could spend less time on their phones, and more time having fun” – exactly the opposite of what big social media companies Facebook and Twitter are trying to do.
What do you think of Foursquare’s new friend check-in feature?
