Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley knows people think his location-based service is about a bunch of dorky teens and twenty-somethings running around and collecting virtual badges.
"Hey Dennis and Naveen How's it going? Hope all is well! My name is Tristan Walker and I'm a first year student (going into my second year) at Stanford Business School (originally from New York). I'm a huge fan of what you both have built and excited about what you guys have planned for FourSquare. It is an awesome, awesome service."
There are no rules to naming a startup. And most entrepreneurs do assume that the name they choose will change before their businesses really start to gain momentum.
Remember INQ Mobile's Facebook phone?
Location-based social networks Foursquare, Gowalla, and Loopt have collectively raised almost $50 million in funding from investors, and racked up around 13 million users.
Did the tech news ever stop this year?
As the year draws to a close, writers from CNN.com take a look back at some of their original stories from 2010.
Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley kicked up a firestorm last week when he said users "should get some kind of referrer's fee" when they get their online followers to buy items like movie tickets.
Facebook this week launched "Places," a service that allows any user to "check in" to restaurants, stores and other local businesses -- thereby sharing their location with friends.
What does one of the hottest mobile app startups do when it closes a $20 million funding round? Buy chairs.
Dennis Crowley was jogging across a New York bridge when he spotted something exciting: a cartoon mushroom, spray-painted on the sidewalk.
It was billed as the "location wars" -- a fight for the affections of the smartphone-wielding techie elite that converged on Austin this week for the South by Southwest Interactive festival.
One year ago, the founders of Foursquare stepped onstage before a tech-savvy crowd in Austin, Texas, to announce their concept: a smartphone app that lets you tell friends where you are.
Foursquare, a location-based app, lets you explore new places, find friends, and even become mayor.
It's billed as a showcase for the brightest minds in technology -- a place to network with industry leaders and see the latest Internet innovations.
This summer a San Francisco cafe called the Marsh began advertising to passersby that Foursquare "mayors" of its establishment could get free drinks.
The recession hasn't dampened the mood or attendance at "Spring break for geeks," a.k.a. the annual South By Southwest Interactive conference. Organizers say the crowd will surpass last year's attendance of about 9,000.
Wanna go where everybody knows your name? Google will make it happen.
© 2013 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
|