For those wondering how Facebook’s recently announced Places functionality would effect other LBS apps, it was announced yesterday that Foursquare saw its most new-user signups ever — just one day after Facebook launched a similar concept.
Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley tweeted yesterday in reference to the milestone saying; “Just heard from @HarryH that today was @foursquare’s biggest day ever in terms of new user signups.” HarryH refers to Foursquare’s engineering lead Harry Heymann. While I assumed the launch of Places would have a positive effect on the likes of Foursquare, Gowalla and the rest, I didn’t think it would be so substantial so quickly.
Many speculated that Facebook’s long-awaited location entrance would bring much-needed attention to the concept, and it looks like those assumptions were correct. In all the news surrounding Facebook’s launch, Foursquare was mentioned numerous times, alerting many people who may have never given it a second look before. Still, what the future holds as Facebook continues to build on the “Places” concept should be interesting in terms of how other LBS apps can keep up.
