Kicking off the 2011 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Foursquare – the hugely popular location-based social networking platform – made a splash by heralding it’s newest advancements.
“People think that Foursquare is just limited to hipsters in New York and San Francisco,” co-founder Dennis Crowley announced as one of the first presenters at the global conference. “But we’re seeing it used all over the world and for more than just bars.”
With more than 6.5 million users worldwide, foursquare is aptly broadening the linguistic reach of its service to five new languages.
“We’re making a significant investment in getting this stuff around the world,” Crowley said, adding that the new version of Foursquare is available in Spanish, French, Italian, German and Japanese.
In only two short years since its introduction, Foursquare users have contributed better than 400 million check-ins to the service. According to Crowley, there are two million Foursquare check-ins each day.
New languages aside, Crowley foreshadowed further growth for Foursquare in the coming months. Based on published reports coming out of Mobile World Congress, Foursquare and its makers are working to reach a point in the near future where the service will effectively be able to gather enough user data, habits, and interests to dramatically cultivate the sophistication of the platform.
“Think about the way Netflix does recommendations,” Crowley noted, suggesting that Foursquare will become more “intelligent” and capable of greater personalization.
“Devices are getting smarter,” Crowley concluded. “They’re changing the way we experience the world and our physical space.”