New York — Closing in on 10 million users, Foursquare on Monday announced at the TechCrunch’s Disrupt 2011, that London-based mobile phone manufacturer INQ has selected Foursquare’s location service to complement social media networking-focused phone.
Founder Dennis Crowley, speaking at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York, said that INQ’s Cloud Touch has opted to implement Foursquare’s API in its phone to offer the location services. The offering would not make its debut for several months, “but the early builds are pretty awesome,” Foursquare said in a blog post.
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From the Foursquare blog:
The launch of the service is still a few months out, but the early builds are pretty awesome. Foursquare is a built-in part of the Android OS, with all the features you know and love (Check-ins! Recommendations! Places nearby! Tips! To-dos!). Coolest thing of all: INQ was able to do this using our open API, joining the thousands of other developers who have made foursquare location a core part of their products. Because it’s built directly into the Android system, you can check in and explore without even firing up the application.
Although it is not a commercial deal, but it somehow depicts that Foursquare is growing into a popular application for phones and is a worthy rival to Facebook Places. Crowley, also said it will be a good way to demonstrate what Foursquare can do. The app will show check-ins, nearby locations and allow people to view photos, get recommendations, see deals and create a to-do list.
Crowley stated that it is an “awesome display of the power of Foursquare. We are psyched that INQ has chosen Foursquare to power the location layer on the INQ Cloud Touch.”
“We are perceiving this as a great way to introduce this to folks who have never used Foursquare,” Crowley said.
The INQ Cloud Touch is popularly referred to as the “Facebook Phone” because the social media network is deeply embedded into the Android OS on the phone. Additionally, the INQ Cloud Touch is a smartphone that “lives and breathes” Facebook. Running on Android 2.2 “Froyo,” is the device that gives you instant access to all your friends on the social site, a news feed right on the home screen and endless Facebook chat. It is the smartphone for people who can not stop networking online, basically.
However, “Earlier on, INQ was able to accomplish this using our open API, joining the thousands of other developers who have made Foursquare location a core part of their products,” Foursquare said. “Because it is built directly into the Android system, you can check in and explore without even firing up the application.”
“The Foursquare experience on INQ is all about tempting a customer to really explore and discover interesting places. First, we are looking to make it really effortless for a consumer to discover and sign up to foursquare itself, via the start-up sequence. Then we are taking Foursquare’s great knowledge of the world around you and visualizing that on your home screen, enabling you to explore events, restaurants, clubs, etc. and even bookmark places in a to-do list,” said INQ CEO Frank Meehan on the INQ site.
With this announcement, Cloud Touch has now endorses that same social media integration to location by bringing Foursquare features and services to the phone. Although launch of the service would not come for a few months, but when it does, Cloud Touch owners will be able to access all of Foursquare’s core features, from check-ins to recommendations to tips, directly from the phone.
Furthermore, it is another strong indication for Foursquare, which is poised to hit 10 million users soon and has hit 600 million check-ins in the last 12 months. Crowley said there are, on average, 3 million check-ins a day, with half of check-ins occurring internationally. And it shows how Foursquare’s API is being adopted in creative ways. There are about 10,000 developers using the Foursquare API. It is also a nice win against Facebook, which has its own location service and is the main attraction of the INQ Cloud Touch.