Badges badges badges!

Dec 02nd

We’ve been rolling out a bunch of new things lately and, thus, haven’t spent much time talking about our core foursquare badges. Time for some badge love: we roll out a ton of these, and they’re broken up into two groups. First, we have the surprise ones, which users unlock when they do certain things. While we don’t really talk about these, but you’ll probably see stories or tweets about them.

The other type are badges we use to encourage and reward certain behaviors. Think the Gym Rat badge, which helps motivate and reward people for going to the gym. Here are a few of the many we’ve introduced recently:

  • Dog’s Best Friend – for frequenting dog parks
  • Great Outdoors – for getting out to parks to breathe in some fresh air
  • Swimmies – for the aquatic minded
  • 9 to 5 – for those of us in the weekly grind
  • Hangover – we’re not encouraging hangovers, but are happy to salute people who keep on trucking!
  • Ski Bum – to commemorate your trips up the mountain

For those of you who love earning new badges, you can also see many of these ‘encouragement’ badges in your trophy case; if you hover over any locked badge (the ones that are grayed out), you’ll get hints to help you earn it.

These are only a few of the many badges we’ve rolled out as we continue to match badges to activities that you love. Going forward, we’ll introduce many of these new badges on Twitter, so make sure you’re following @foursquare. Happy exploring!

Posted in Badges Blog Foursquare

52 Comments

  • Glenn

    Badges are cool ‘n all but my question continues to be, “so what?”
    What’s the point if businesses don’t honor foursquare check-ins or if badges don’t really give me something.

  • http://www.idesignatlanta.com DonaldDahl

    The great outdoors badge doesn’t really work. I’m at a different outdoor venue every other day and have yet to unlock this puppy.

  • http://twitter.com/nickcicero Nick Cicero

    Good to see the Hangover badge again, just earned my swimmies the other day.

  • http://twitter.com/RealJamesDean James Dean

    It’s all about the fun of striving to get them. There doesn’t have to always be a tangible reward for something to enjoy it. Kick back and have some fun. :-)

  • http://nerdcode.co.uk Jamie Barlow

    Why do you have to be rewarded for everything. It’s fun to do, so do it. There is one “offer” for mayors around where I live (that’s by Dominos Pizza) but I continue to check-in for the fun of it.

  • http://twitter.com/RealJamesDean James Dean

    Glad to see these, especially the 9 to 5 badge. Looking forward to grabbing that one soon since I already check-in daily to work. :-)

  • http://twitter.com/RealJamesDean James Dean

    Glad to see these, especially the 9 to 5 badge. Looking forward to grabbing that one soon since I already check-in daily to work. :-)

  • http://www.twitter.com/tericee tericee

    Is it possible to turn on auto-tweets for badges, but turn it off for mayor notifications?

  • Anonymous

    yup, you can edit this at foursquare.com/setings

  • Heat Pad

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  • Heat Pad

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  • paperthin_him

    the hangover badge doesn’t show up in my trophy case…

  • http://twitter.com/abfa00 Lauren Siegert

    Yeah, agreed! People like getting achievements on Xbox live- you don’t get anything tangible for them, either. Even a little image showing up on my profile is a good enough reward for me.

  • Anonymous

    Yeah, these park and swimming badges aren’t working. my daily activity and neither have unlocked.

  • http://www.facebook.com/dimitri.thevenin Dimitri Thevenin

    Still can’t unlock my Waze Roadwarrior Badge :(

  • Stillsti
  • Abe

    hmm.. I was too early then with my shout around morning of Nov 24th, while checking in to the Frankfurt international safety check, “is going to get gate raped in a few mins”.

    Any retroactual change of the TSA badge? :)

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XPEIP47H7FC6LU4R54JZTGME5E pete a

    this guy cheats at foursquare http://foursquare.com/user/1080839 made up a fake ski shop to get ski bum badge and just overall cheats tried emailing foursquare but no response i encourage everyone to check out this guy and complain to foursquare

  • Anonymous

    we’ve made some changes recently that will deal with the issue you mention. thanks for caring about the integrity of our badges :)

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XPEIP47H7FC6LU4R54JZTGME5E pete a

    will you delete his account or at least take way badges ect

  • guest

    Thanks for creating more badges that aren’t sponsored or city-centric.

  • Matthew

    BADGE SUGGESTION: “WE’RE HAVING A BABY!!!” should be a badge!! You could have two badges for a BOY and a GIRL…. Would be valid for check-in venue’s tagged as Hospitals or the like…. my friend is having a baby today and he wanted to know if there was a badge for this?!?!

    THERE SHOULD BE!!!

  • Northlight

    Do you have an Art Gallery badge? I own a gallery in Maine and would love to connect up with the tons of other art galleries in Maine and create a trail around the state.

  • Christine

    A 2010 lunar eclipse badge would be awesome… just sayin’…

  • Melanie

    I LOVE the idea of a 9-5 badge – seeing as I’m the only one checking into my office. Can’t wait to become Foursquare official! What a fun idea (is that a Swingline stapler? haha).

  • Anonymous

    yes me too. I even tried to create real outdoor news venues.

  • guest

    Am i able to create my own badge?

  • Anonymous

    We don’t remove accounts or badges, but if users are not checking in fairly, they won’t be able to hold mayorships.

    I’m not seeing any emails from you, nor can I find your account to contact you. If you’d like to contact us directly, email ct at foursquare .com

    Thanks!

  • Amarylis48

    for te life of me i can’t understand how to get badges or embed them or whatever you do

  • Anonymous

    you’ll get badges when you start checking in!

  • Guest

    A Hilton Hotels Worldwide badge would be cool…unlocking it after staying at hotels. Since many of us travel to different cities and states…just sayin’

  • Marsha Bleier

    It takes a 7-8 times try it for 3 days straight that is how I got mine.

  • Marsha B

    When you check in make sure they have the water icon to the event or type in the search swimming or ocean to make sure you get the right credit for your activity. Good luck!

  • Marsha B

    Yes they do. It takes about 10 check-in’s to get it.

  • Marsha

    Make sure you search “Park” to get credit because you need the hiking man and the hill to get at least that is how I got mine.

  • Marsha

    Make sure you search “Park” to get credit because you need the hiking man and the hill to get at least that is how I got mine.

  • http://www.idesignatlanta.com DonaldDahl

    still no luck, tried checking to 2 places while i was out that had a hiking man and the hill and still no outdoors badge. Foursquare refuses to acknowledge a huge issue with this badge either.

  • http://www.idesignatlanta.com DonaldDahl

    send a tweet to @4sqsupport and @foursquare til they fix this problem.

  • Cazzdevil

    Is the 9-5 badge available in the UK? It’s not in my trophy case as a locked badge where I see on other users trophy cases it’s there with an unlock hint…

  • Pro Alex P

    Why would I want to “earn” a badge? This is not a real motivation?

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=693795046 Ann Richardson

    I got mine, I work in London.

  • http://twitter.com/4sqNorthEast 4sqNorthEast

    Thanks Ann, I eventually got it when I realised the location I was checking in at wasn’t labelled with the right category.

  • Jimmie Butler

    Is there a way to suggest new badges?

  • http://twitter.com/UFMasterGators General MasterGator

    Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!

  • Luis_juan

    You should add a badge for Taking over Someone Elses Majorship

  • tritri

    I would like to see a Race track badge! Similar to the I’m on a boat badge : only one check in.

    A Stoned badge would be awesome! When you buy weed/hash in a Coffeeshop in Amsterdam. Similar to the stripclub badge

    Or a tattoo badge when you have your first tattoo> similar to the i’m a boy/girl badge

  • Vicki

    We love badges, especially web based digital badges.

    http://www.koolbadges.co.uk

  • http://twitter.com/LetsDoHighTea Masuimi

    Love the inclusion of the Gym-Rat badge, but it would be so great (and motivating) to have more fitness or health orientated badges.

    Here’s an idea: a “dance” badge (for unique check-ins to any dance studio)!

    Please 4sq?! :)

  • http://twitter.com/LetsDoHighTea Masuimi

    I would really like to know this too. I’d love to see more fitness badges!

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  • Petervanlaethem

    Why aren’t all my badges shown on my account? I already visited more than 50 different venues and I got two mayorships but these badges are missing (and maybe there are more badges I don’t seem to get). Who can I turn to to get this solved?
    Big thanks to anyone who can help me out and brings back the fun in Foursquare :)

  • http://www.facebook.com/hema.ammar Hema Ammar