For over a week now, Foursquare has been teasing us with screenshots from their upcoming update to their mobile app. The company has used Twitter to tweet photos with the hashtag #allnew4sq, hinting that a fairly major upgrade is in the pipeline. A few days ago they let us know that the new Foursquare was scheduled to launch this week, and today they’ve put an actual date on the record – Thursday.
It’s unclear exactly what will be contained in the “all new” Foursquare, but the aforementioned screenshots give us a few clues about the direction the location app wants to take.
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@foursquare Where’s the party at? See who’s nearby with the #allnew4sq – coming this Thursday! http://t.co/LZw2RyTP
For instance, the photo dropped today shows that Foursquare is about to tell users when their friends are nearby. This information could be discerned before, but this new interface looks to give you the location information of your buddies in a more concise, direct manner. Check it out:
Earlier teaser photos show what Foursquare is adding to the maps you see when using the app. It’s clear that these photos were taken from the mobile app as opposed to Foursquare.com because they still use Google maps, which Foursquare ditched back in February on their desktop site only.
Another screenshot hints at a possible new recommendation service that utilizes location + friend check-ins. Over a year ago, Foursquare’s Dennis Crowley mentioned “predictive check-ins” that suggest activities to users based on the loads of data that the company has at their disposal. Something like this could be one step in the evolution towards that concept being fully realized.
Could the all new Foursquare advance the goal to become a real recommendation service that moves beyond the check-ins? Their “Explore” feature begun that transition, and I guess we’ll see in a few days what this new version has to offer.