Foursquare Testing NFC, Adds Merchant Rewards

The Foursquare mobile check-in service has just launched v3.0 of its mobile app, the biggest update the company has ever launched. Foursquare employees have been working around the clock to finish the update in time for SXSW, in what co-founder Dennis Crowley calls Foursquare's "shock and awe" campaign. The company is focusing on the potential of near field communication in this new update. Below, you can see the Foursquare team up past midnight, celebrating as the update launched. Read on past the cut for more details.

Foursquare also added a new version of its Foursquare Merchant Platform in this update, which allows merchants to offer Foursquare Specials to customers, creating deals on the fly and get them up and running on Foursquare's network in minutes. Foursquare has 250,000 businesses in their database, and every one of them can begin to use these new tools immediately. Shown below is an example of the blue "check in" badge that would be using NFC:

If you have an NFC equipped Android phone, you could tap it to the blue badge, and be automatically checked in to Foursquare HQ. Foursquare is still working to fully integrate NFC into its system, but there is no doubt this will be a major focus for them.

[via Near Field Communications World]