The magic of foursquare discovery, now on your big-screen devices. #new4SQ

Nov 15th

NOTE (Tuesday, 1:30pm EST): This will be going live over the next couple of days. Hope you enjoy it! Now live for all! Enjoy!

As foursquare has evolved, the focus has turned from simply ‘checking in’ to sharing our experiences and expertise, unlocking rewards and deals, and exploring the world around us. And, though we spend a lot of time improving the app for your phone, we know that sometimes the best place to do those things is when you’re visiting the website from your computer. In the next couple of days, we’re rolling out the #new4SQ at foursquare.com, with a huge emphasis on discovery.

The first thing you’ll notice when you load up foursquare.com is a big map on the top (you can click on the arrow to make it even bigger). It shows everything interesting nearby – your friends, places that are trending (in yellow), places on your lists (green), places with Specials (orange), and places that are popular (blue). You can even drag the map around or zoom in and out and all the interesting places update automatically. Try dragging it around to see how it works.

And, to make sure it’s useful every time you visit, we also pull out a few results that are perfect for what you want to do next. Load it up at 11:30 and we’ll start suggesting great lunch spots nearby, and in the early evening we’ll switch to places for dinner. On Saturday afternoon, we’ll show you some great weekend activities. We’ve been testing this at foursquare HQ for a while, and love checking it for new ideas before we go out.

And it doesn’t stop there. While we’re loving what you all are doing with foursquare Lists, we thought it would be nice to build some tools to help you, you know, find lists. So we built List discovery, with both search and visual recommendations. Now, before going on a trip, you can search for the best restaurants or sightseeing spots in that city, or just find some great new stuff to do in your own city. Instead of searching for a single place, find a guided tour. Tap into the expertise of the nearly 15,000,000-strong foursquare community. And, if you’ve turned Radar on, we’ll alert you when you’re near one of them.

The last thing regarding discovery: place pages got a total face-lift. We get over a million people a day checking out our website for info on a restaurant or museum, and there’s a better representation of photos, tips, and information. It’s cleaner and much more useful, with more of what people are looking for.

Of course, it’s not just about discovery, it’s about introducing an entirely new visual language to foursquare. Built on top of a solid grid foundation with cohesive and consistent style, this new design will allow us to expand and launch new user-facing features more easily and quickly. Read more about it on Sam’s blog (he’s our lead designer for the web). Here are some of the more noticeable changes:

  • You can now comment (and see comments) right on the homepage.
  • Looking for celebrities or brands to follow? We present some you may like on the right of the homepage.
  • When your friend checks out your check-in detail screen, it now shows your points (a much requested feature!).
  • Because we built this all using modern web standards, it looks awesome on other devices, like your shiny new iPad.
  • Photos are bigger and prettier.
  • And, well, all of our most important screens got a makeover and we’ve got more in store. Poke around and look through all of it.

The new site also makes it a lot easier for us to launch new features in the future. So enjoy the new site, and stay tuned for more!

Posted in Blog

84 Comments

  • http://www.facebook.com/ingram1225 William Ingram

    will I still have to spam my friends for every check in (even when im the mayor) to get full points? I’ve boycotted foursquare because of this. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/ingram1225 William Ingram

    will I still have to spam my friends for every check in (even when im the mayor) to get full points? I’ve boycotted foursquare because of this. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/ingram1225 William Ingram

    will I still have to spam my friends for every check in (even when im the mayor) to get full points? I’ve boycotted foursquare because of this. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/ingram1225 William Ingram

    will I still have to spam my friends for every check in (even when im the mayor) to get full points? I’ve boycotted foursquare because of this. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/ingram1225 William Ingram

    will I still have to spam my friends for every check in (even when im the mayor) to get full points? I’ve boycotted foursquare because of this. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/ingram1225 William Ingram

    will I still have to spam my friends for every check in (even when im the mayor) to get full points? I’ve boycotted foursquare because of this. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/ingram1225 William Ingram

    will I still have to spam my friends for every check in (even when im the mayor) to get full points? I’ve boycotted foursquare because of this. 

  • http://twitter.com/ratmats Mats Lagerburg

    nice site!!

  • Anonymous

    Sometimes change is difficult – sometimes, when you feel like the developers are actually taking into consideration how their stuff is being used and then making it amazing, it’s a beautiful thing.

  • http://twitter.com/shancornwall Shanique S. Cornwall

    Awesome guys! Very good job!

  • http://www.bijansabet.com bijan

    fantastic!

  • Anonymous

    so beautiful

  • http://twitter.com/ikunaltandon Kunal

    very cool!

  • Deviantartjr

    cool,love it 

  • http://FlameMan.pl FlameMan

    I like it. New layout looks awesome. Especially big map.

  • http://twitter.com/MichaelForni Michael F Forni

    Speechless … can’t wait!

  • http://twitter.com/MichaelForni Michael F Forni

    Speechless … can’t wait!

  • http://www.facebook.com/matheusrosa Matheus Rosa

    Not available to me :-( . But, I really liked the changes. Very good. Congratulations!

  • http://www.facebook.com/matheusrosa Matheus Rosa

    Not available to me :-( . But, I really liked the changes. Very good. Congratulations!

  • Anonymous

    As usually, mucho kudos!

  • Anonymous

    As usually, mucho kudos!

  • Angelika Zajkowska

    It’s so cool.I love  it!

  • Anonymous

    It looks great.  One criticism: in History, I liked it better when photos attached to checkins were shown inline, without requiring an extra click.

  • Dexterutz

    Nice. Bravo

  • Anonymous

    awesome

  • http://open.spotify.com/user/iphonetunez Rayz

    Now this is exactly why FourSquare is the 2nd (sorry, but Twitter is 1st) most used App on my iPhone 4S. 4Sqr Nation lives on!

  • blueskyfrog

    Oh? That’s something I haven’t heard of yet? Do you now get more points if you post a check-in to Twitter or Facebook?

  • Marc

    Looks like some nice changes.  Hopefully this is just a bug, but the comment link from each checkin on the activity list doesn’t work for me in Chrome, and the removal of the indicator for the number of comments a checkin has is a huge loss, there is no way to see what comments have discussion threads from the activity view now.

  • http://twitter.com/justenmartian Justen Martian

    Love the new look!

  • blueskyfrog

    Neat!

  • http://twitter.com/sermad sermad

    I think this is really cool. May I add a feature request for my use case.

    I use 4sq explore BEFORE I go places. Because New York is always full if you just turn up. So say I want to go out in the east village and I know I want to eat japanese. I use the mobile app and I set explore to 10km radius and search.

    It be really really nice if I could do this on the 4sq website. You kind of have it with the new map on the homepage but you don’t have the ability to ‘search’ using the explore interface – no filters or choices.

    So really I’m asking for a way to use explore for a place I’m not at. Hope that makes sense.

  • http://rajavoom.blogspot.com/ Prosti

    Nice!

  • Anonymous

    @Newthing:disqus It was great for me, I hope the same for you…My neighbor’s step-sister makes $73 an hour on the computer. She has been without a job for 5 months but last month her paycheck was $9012 just working on the computer for a few hours. http://uuurl.net/0a4eh

  • http://twitter.com/pamponika Ника

    OMG. There is no access to satellite photos? In Google maps is not the scheme of my town, I always adjusted the coordinates of the photos from the satellite. :( sad

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1525620146 Chris Fox

    Very well done! The interface is clean – almost too minnimal – but that’s just teeny complaint. :P Comments aren’t working on the main page / activity feed, but they work if I click and navigate to the specific check in I want to comment on. 

    But very well done. Everything good was carried over from the previous version, and new content was still added. Can’t go wrong with complete success. :D

  • Frenchcreme

    No…lol. if I am checking in a lot I will uncheck my facebook and just let it post to Twitter. It use to be if you didn’t share you didn’t get points, it was like you were hidden. I think they mean just posting a lot of checkins…..the alerts use to go off on your phone with a pop up. It doesn’t do that anymore thankfully lol

  • http://twitter.com/akaCarioca Carlos

    As mentioned in another blog, it is the natural step on the re/evolutionary process of using the market/meta data on the app. Great move.

  • http://blogs.blackberry.com Douglas tr0n Soltys

    Loving #new4SQ guys. Been wanting that big beautiful map since @foursquare:twitter launched. Thanks @dens:twitter  @holger:twitter  @pcnofelt:twitter ! Next up is a map showing all my check-ins since I started my account, right? =D

  • Noo

    It looks great on the iPad, but when I want to put it on my home screen I still get the ugly pixel icon. Can you place the new green icon in hi-res.

  • janez

    I like it, but looks like http://oust.me :)

  • http://twitter.com/mbazaluk Mike Bazaluk

    Nice shiny new web browser version, appreciation for multiple visits, and now discovery & exploration lists, impressed with the approach in changing and improvement.
    Nice one 4SQ

  • http://twitter.com/mbazaluk Mike Bazaluk

    Nice shiny new web browser version, appreciation for multiple visits, and now discovery & exploration lists, impressed with the approach in changing and improvement.
    Nice one 4SQ

  • http://twitter.com/nikspeed renne_rahmschnitzel

    damn. this looks great!!
    luv it, woo hah!

  • http://ChrisFaw.com Chris Fawcett

    Taking advantage of the capabilities of the bigger-screened devices to enchance and renew the user experience. AWESOME! That’s why I love you, guys! 

  • Chad Harvey

    +1 the new layout.  Cannot find the superuser information that was under the admin tab.

  • http://twitter.com/NobueIto Paul Ferrell Brown

    These interface changes are great. The map alone is a fantastic addition, and all of the new features make the Foursquare web interface much more useful.

  • Pwman1942

    I have joined 4 square but cannot get my msg posted, I always get a return call that 4 sq don’t understand what I am saying

  • Mike

    Nice.  I miss the “Recently Crowned Mayors.”  I’ve met new 4SQ friends through there.

  • http://space.st/ation spacestation

    powerful and useful updates from Foursquare today for exploration

  • http://space.st/ation spacestation

    powerful and useful updates from Foursquare today for exploration

  • http://twitter.com/BillFathauer Bill Fathauer

    Please bring back the “recently crowned mayor” section.

  • Foursquare Addict

    looks like amazing idea!

    FoursquareAddict.info

  • http://twitter.com/cheeyi Chee Yi

    Cool, works nice on my iPad. :)

  • http://www.comunitee.com Don Daszkowski

    Looks great!! Congrats!

    Where do we send feedback, I found a very minor bug.

  • http://twitter.com/MrWirya Wirya Martin

    awesome..!! Bravo team foursquare :)

  • http://twitter.com/MrWirya Wirya Martin

    awesome..!! Bravo team foursquare :)

  • Phil C (SU 1)

    Great Changes, however for SuperUsers the “Recently Crowned Mayor” section was a way for us to find venues that need updating. Please bring that back (even if it is just for Super Users).

    Cheers,
    –Phil (SU 1)

  • Phil C (SU 1)

    Great Changes, however for SuperUsers the “Recently Crowned Mayor” section was a way for us to find venues that need updating. Please bring that back (even if it is just for Super Users).

    Cheers,
    –Phil (SU 1)

  • http://www.oscarchung.com/ Oscar Chung

    LOVE the new site! <3
    Looks a bit like Gowalla's in some way, but much better in every way.

    And love that we can view all the photos of a venue now.
    But then are we getting a function to "report photos"? Saw some irrelevant photos every now and then (like a screenshot of a weather app for a venue…)

  • http://twitter.com/adski Adam Bramwell

    .. and how about letting it launch full-screen when saved to the home screen? That’d be nice.

  • http://twitter.com/adski Adam Bramwell

    .. and how about letting it launch full-screen when saved to the home screen? That’d be nice.

  • http://twitter.com/adski Adam Bramwell

    .. and how about letting it launch full-screen when saved to the home screen? That’d be nice.

  • http://twitter.com/adski Adam Bramwell

    .. and how about letting it launch full-screen when saved to the home screen? That’d be nice.

  • http://tizianoluccarelli.posterous.com Tiziano Luccarelli

    Great choices.

  • http://blog.foursquare.com foursquare

     foursquare.com/admin still works for all your superuser tools and resources!

  • http://blog.foursquare.com foursquare

    tweet us @4sqSupport with details, thanks!

  • http://blog.foursquare.com foursquare

    tweet us @4sqSupport with details, thanks!

  • http://blog.foursquare.com foursquare

    tweet us @4sqSupport with details, thanks!

  • zsofi

    love love love the changes, but not everything is glitter, there are glitches :/
     - i can not add anything to my ‘done’ list. the button is unclickable
     - the map isnt working for me, i mostly dont see my friends nor the places nearby.
     - i got placed to the geographical center of my city (never checked in there), since the morning i had several chek-ins, but im still stuck on that particular point. yes, i allowed my geo location.
     - im using 4square from my browser and my stupidphone via mobile web, if that has anything to do with the abve

  • http://www.thednetworks.com Dhawal D

    Looks Awesome!!

  • http://twitter.com/RealZipGun Chris

    Along with bringing back recently crowned mayors, I would like to know which venues were claimed by the official business brought back.

  • Foursquare Addict

    Like this…   FoursquareAddict.info

  • Anonymous

    Still can’t upload venue images from my computer, something I’d really like to see happen in the near future.

  • Seamus OGeary

    Where is the satellite imagery ?

  • aby

    I started using foursquare early 2010.  The only thing that was missing at that time was better website.  This is Super Awesome really liked the new website.. way to go foursqare :)

  • Shashikant Yadav

    Thanks for nice posting.

  • http://twitter.com/eskaff Elias Skaff

    looks Great but how to Edit Venues that i created ? 

  • John

    This is a great change for foursquare. We also love the foursquare explore option. If they monetize explore for local business, it could be very interesting.

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    i totally agree!

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    It messed up with these two things:
     - i can not add anything to my ‘done’ list. the button is unclickable
     - the map isnt working for me, i mostly dont see my friends nor the places nearby. 
     

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  • http://twitter.com/4GreenPs Lynn Anne Miller

    I love the site, but amazingly can’t figure out how the heck to CHECK IN!!!  ?

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    This blog is a good one! Its original, thanks for the info! Is there a way I can tell my people about this post. 

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