#foursquare — Public Fediverse posts

Spontanes Meet-up der Swarm SU: Dienstag, 14.20 Uhr Innenhof-Affenfelsen. #rp26 #swarm #foursquare

Spontanes Meet-up der Swarm SU: Dienstag, 14.20 Uhr Innenhof-Affenfelsen. #rp26 #swarm #foursquare

Spontanes Meet-up der Swarm SU: Dienstag, 14.20 Uhr Innenhof-Affenfelsen. #rp26 #swarm #foursquare

Zest Maps Is the AI-Powered ‘Spiritual Successor to Foursquare’

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.wired.com/story/zest-maps-is-the-second-coming-of-foursquare/

Zest Maps Is the AI-Powered ‘Spiritual Successor to Foursquare’

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.wired.com/story/zest-maps-is-the-second-coming-of-foursquare/

Zest Maps Is the AI-Powered ‘Spiritual Successor to Foursquare’

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.wired.com/story/zest-maps-is-the-second-coming-of-foursquare/

Zest Maps Is the AI-Powered ‘Spiritual Successor to Foursquare’

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.wired.com/story/zest-maps-is-the-second-coming-of-foursquare/

Zest Maps Is the AI-Powered ‘Spiritual Successor to Foursquare’

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.wired.com/story/zest-maps-is-the-second-coming-of-foursquare/

🆕 blog! “Why is it so hard to passively stalk my friends' locations?”

I feel terribly guilty when I visit a new city, post photos of my travels, only to have a friend say "Hey! Why didn't you let me know you were in my neck of the woods?"

Similarly, if I bump into an old acquaintance at a conference, we both tend to say "If only I'd known…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/04/why-is-it-so-hard-to-passively-stalk-my-friends-locations/
⸻
#FourSquare #geolocation #location

🆕 blog! “Why is it so hard to passively stalk my friends' locations?”

I feel terribly guilty when I visit a new city, post photos of my travels, only to have a friend say "Hey! Why didn't you let me know you were in my neck of the woods?"

Similarly, if I bump into an old acquaintance at a conference, we both tend to say "If only I'd known…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/04/why-is-it-so-hard-to-passively-stalk-my-friends-locations/
⸻
#FourSquare #geolocation #location

🆕 blog! “Why is it so hard to passively stalk my friends' locations?”

I feel terribly guilty when I visit a new city, post photos of my travels, only to have a friend say "Hey! Why didn't you let me know you were in my neck of the woods?"

Similarly, if I bump into an old acquaintance at a conference, we both tend to say "If only I'd known…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/04/why-is-it-so-hard-to-passively-stalk-my-friends-locations/
⸻
#FourSquare #geolocation #location

🆕 blog! “Why is it so hard to passively stalk my friends' locations?”

I feel terribly guilty when I visit a new city, post photos of my travels, only to have a friend say "Hey! Why didn't you let me know you were in my neck of the woods?"

Similarly, if I bump into an old acquaintance at a conference, we both tend to say "If only I'd known…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/04/why-is-it-so-hard-to-passively-stalk-my-friends-locations/
⸻
#FourSquare #geolocation #location

🆕 blog! “Why is it so hard to passively stalk my friends' locations?”

I feel terribly guilty when I visit a new city, post photos of my travels, only to have a friend say "Hey! Why didn't you let me know you were in my neck of the woods?"

Similarly, if I bump into an old acquaintance at a conference, we both tend to say "If only I'd known…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/04/why-is-it-so-hard-to-passively-stalk-my-friends-locations/
⸻
#FourSquare #geolocation #location

Why is it so hard to passively stalk my friends' locations?

I feel terribly guilty when I visit a new city, post photos of my travels, only to have a friend say "Hey! Why didn't you let me know you were in my neck of the woods?"

Similarly, if I bump into an old acquaintance at a conference, we both tend to say "If only I'd known you were here, we could have had dinner together last night!"

I do enjoy the serendipity of events like FOSDEM - randomly seeing a mate and expressing the joy of spontaneity. But I also like arranging to meet up in advance.

At the moment, my strategy is sending a blast on social media saying "I'm visiting [this city] next week, anyone fancy a beer and a natter?" I've met friends all over Europe, Australia, and New Zealand that way. It mostly works. But I can't help feeling it is inefficient and prone to missing connections.

I even wrote my own code to auto-post FourSquare checkins to my other social media sites.

Here are my ideal scenarios. Imagine something built in to Signal / WhatsApp / Whatever app you already use.

Plan In Advance

I tell my app that I'm going to Barcelona from 14th - 19th February and am happy to meet any of my friends.

✨Background Magic✨

My friend Alice has also planned a trip to Barcelona around those dates. She gets a ping saying that one of her friends is going to be in the same city. Does she want to know more?

So far, so Dopplr.

My friend Bob lives just outside of Barcelona. He's set his "willing to travel" settings to be about 30 minutes, so also receives a ping.

I don't know that either of them have seen the notification until they decide they want to meet.

Spontaneous Fun

I step off the train in Manchester, England England. Perhaps the app notices I'm away from home, or maybe I press the "Anyone Around?" button.

On a map I can see friends who have shared their rough location. I decide to message Chuck to see if he's free for a chat.

Dave notices my location is now within his preferred travel distance. He gives me a ring.

A bit like how FourSquare used to be - but with less precision.

Downsides

The above is very much the "happy path". It doesn't look at any of the knotty problems or grapple with the UI that would be needed to make this work. But we know the technology for sharing location is viable - so what are the social issues that make this so difficult?

Social Awkwardness

"Oh, fuck, Edgar's location says he's in town. Can we pretend to be out of the country?"

Alternatively, "Huh, I know at least a dozen people who live in Skegness. Why aren't any of them responding to me?"

Social pressure and awkwardness are hard problems. No one wants to use the app that makes you feel like a friendless loser.

Privacy

Do you want your friends knowing your every movement? I'm sure some people do, but most probably don't. It's possible to sketch out some vague controls:

• Only send a notification if I push this button.
• Don't send alerts if I am within this radius of my home / work.
• Fuzz my location to the city / state / country level.

Danger

Is it a risk to let people know vaguely where you are? Is meeting up with (semi-) strangers from the Internet a smart life choice? Is having an app stalk you across the globe giving too much data to advertisers?

Does that creep from work abuse the system to keep popping up whenever you're out with friends?

Technology

I said the technology exists for this, and that was sort of true. Every device has GPS & an Internet connection. Storing a log of friends and sending them a message is a solved problem.

But is it solved in a decentralised and privacy preserving way?

No one wants to give all this power to one company. Google will build it and kill it. Facebook will sell your secrets to dropshippers. A funky start-up will be acquhired by Apple & restricted to iOS devices.

My location is fuzzed to an acceptable degree of imprecision and then sent… where? To all my friends directly? To a central server? Can k-anonymity help?

Is this a separate app? Everyone seemed to leave FourSquare after they buggered around with it. Perhaps it is just a feature in existing apps?

What's Already There?

Messaging apps like Signal, Telegram, and WhatsApp allow you to share your location with one or more friends.

To me, it feels a bit weird to manually send a dropped pin to some / all of my contact. It also doesn't let you share "tomorrow I will be in…"

Using "Stories" is the common way to share an update with all contacts - but none of them let you automatically share your location in a story.

FourSquare's Swarm app allows you to check in to a "neighbourhood". But there's no obvious way of saying "London" or "Manchester" - and I'm not sure how close to an area you need to be to get an alert that your friend is there.

What's Next?

I don't want to build this. Trying to get everyone I know to adopt a new app isn't going to happen. With the fragmentation of messaging and the lack of interoperability, this is likely to remain an unsolved problem for some time.

So here's my strategy.

• Get back in to using FourSquare. Most of my friends seemed to stop using it back in 2017 when it was split into Swarm. But a few are still on there.
• Manually post a story on Mastodon, BlueSky, Facebook, WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram saying "Visiting Hamburg next week. Anyone want a beer?"
• Hope that something better comes along.

Why is it so hard to passively stalk my friends' locations?

I feel terribly guilty when I visit a new city, post photos of my travels, only to have a friend say "Hey! Why didn't you let me know you were in my neck of the woods?"

Similarly, if I bump into an old acquaintance at a conference, we both tend to say "If only I'd known you were here, we could have had dinner together last night!"

I do enjoy the serendipity of events like FOSDEM - randomly seeing a mate and expressing the joy of spontaneity. But I also like arranging to meet up in advance.

At the moment, my strategy is sending a blast on social media saying "I'm visiting [this city] next week, anyone fancy a beer and a natter?" I've met friends all over Europe, Australia, and New Zealand that way. It mostly works. But I can't help feeling it is inefficient and prone to missing connections.

I even wrote my own code to auto-post FourSquare checkins to my other social media sites.

Here are my ideal scenarios. Imagine something built in to Signal / WhatsApp / Whatever app you already use.

Plan In Advance

I tell my app that I'm going to Barcelona from 14th - 19th February and am happy to meet any of my friends.

✨Background Magic✨

My friend Alice has also planned a trip to Barcelona around those dates. She gets a ping saying that one of her friends is going to be in the same city. Does she want to know more?

So far, so Dopplr.

My friend Bob lives just outside of Barcelona. He's set his "willing to travel" settings to be about 30 minutes, so also receives a ping.

I don't know that either of them have seen the notification until they decide they want to meet.

Spontaneous Fun

I step off the train in Manchester, England England. Perhaps the app notices I'm away from home, or maybe I press the "Anyone Around?" button.

On a map I can see friends who have shared their rough location. I decide to message Chuck to see if he's free for a chat.

Dave notices my location is now within his preferred travel distance. He gives me a ring.

A bit like how FourSquare used to be - but with less precision.

Downsides

The above is very much the "happy path". It doesn't look at any of the knotty problems or grapple with the UI that would be needed to make this work. But we know the technology for sharing location is viable - so what are the social issues that make this so difficult?

Social Awkwardness

"Oh, fuck, Edgar's location says he's in town. Can we pretend to be out of the country?"

Alternatively, "Huh, I know at least a dozen people who live in Skegness. Why aren't any of them responding to me?"

Social pressure and awkwardness are hard problems. No one wants to use the app that makes you feel like a friendless loser.

Privacy

Do you want your friends knowing your every movement? I'm sure some people do, but most probably don't. It's possible to sketch out some vague controls:

• Only send a notification if I push this button.
• Don't send alerts if I am within this radius of my home / work.
• Fuzz my location to the city / state / country level.

Danger

Is it a risk to let people know vaguely where you are? Is meeting up with (semi-) strangers from the Internet a smart life choice? Is having an app stalk you across the globe giving too much data to advertisers?

Does that creep from work abuse the system to keep popping up whenever you're out with friends?

Technology

I said the technology exists for this, and that was sort of true. Every device has GPS & an Internet connection. Storing a log of friends and sending them a message is a solved problem.

But is it solved in a decentralised and privacy preserving way?

No one wants to give all this power to one company. Google will build it and kill it. Facebook will sell your secrets to dropshippers. A funky start-up will be acquhired by Apple & restricted to iOS devices.

My location is fuzzed to an acceptable degree of imprecision and then sent… where? To all my friends directly? To a central server? Can k-anonymity help?

Is this a separate app? Everyone seemed to leave FourSquare after they buggered around with it. Perhaps it is just a feature in existing apps?

What's Already There?

Messaging apps like Signal, Telegram, and WhatsApp allow you to share your location with one or more friends.

To me, it feels a bit weird to manually send a dropped pin to some / all of my contact. It also doesn't let you share "tomorrow I will be in…"

Using "Stories" is the common way to share an update with all contacts - but none of them let you automatically share your location in a story.

FourSquare's Swarm app allows you to check in to a "neighbourhood". But there's no obvious way of saying "London" or "Manchester" - and I'm not sure how close to an area you need to be to get an alert that your friend is there.

What's Next?

I don't want to build this. Trying to get everyone I know to adopt a new app isn't going to happen. With the fragmentation of messaging and the lack of interoperability, this is likely to remain an unsolved problem for some time.

So here's my strategy.

• Get back in to using FourSquare. Most of my friends seemed to stop using it back in 2017 when it was split into Swarm. But a few are still on there.
• Manually post a story on Mastodon, BlueSky, Facebook, WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram saying "Visiting Hamburg next week. Anyone want a beer?"
• Hope that something better comes along.

Why is it so hard to passively stalk my friends' locations?

I feel terribly guilty when I visit a new city, post photos of my travels, only to have a friend say "Hey! Why didn't you let me know you were in my neck of the woods?"

Similarly, if I bump into an old acquaintance at a conference, we both tend to say "If only I'd known you were here, we could have had dinner together last night!"

I do enjoy the serendipity of events like FOSDEM - randomly seeing a mate and expressing the joy of spontaneity. But I also like arranging to meet up in advance.

At the moment, my strategy is sending a blast on social media saying "I'm visiting [this city] next week, anyone fancy a beer and a natter?" I've met friends all over Europe, Australia, and New Zealand that way. It mostly works. But I can't help feeling it is inefficient and prone to missing connections.

I even wrote my own code to auto-post FourSquare checkins to my other social media sites.

Here are my ideal scenarios. Imagine something built in to Signal / WhatsApp / Whatever app you already use.

Plan In Advance

I tell my app that I'm going to Barcelona from 14th - 19th February and am happy to meet any of my friends.

✨Background Magic✨

My friend Alice has also planned a trip to Barcelona around those dates. She gets a ping saying that one of her friends is going to be in the same city. Does she want to know more?

So far, so Dopplr.

My friend Bob lives just outside of Barcelona. He's set his "willing to travel" settings to be about 30 minutes, so also receives a ping.

I don't know that either of them have seen the notification until they decide they want to meet.

Spontaneous Fun

I step off the train in Manchester, England England. Perhaps the app notices I'm away from home, or maybe I press the "Anyone Around?" button.

On a map I can see friends who have shared their rough location. I decide to message Chuck to see if he's free for a chat.

Dave notices my location is now within his preferred travel distance. He gives me a ring.

A bit like how FourSquare used to be - but with less precision.

Downsides

The above is very much the "happy path". It doesn't look at any of the knotty problems or grapple with the UI that would be needed to make this work. But we know the technology for sharing location is viable - so what are the social issues that make this so difficult?

Social Awkwardness

"Oh, fuck, Edgar's location says he's in town. Can we pretend to be out of the country?"

Alternatively, "Huh, I know at least a dozen people who live in Skegness. Why aren't any of them responding to me?"

Social pressure and awkwardness are hard problems. No one wants to use the app that makes you feel like a friendless loser.

Privacy

Do you want your friends knowing your every movement? I'm sure some people do, but most probably don't. It's possible to sketch out some vague controls:

• Only send a notification if I push this button.
• Don't send alerts if I am within this radius of my home / work.
• Fuzz my location to the city / state / country level.

Danger

Is it a risk to let people know vaguely where you are? Is meeting up with (semi-) strangers from the Internet a smart life choice? Is having an app stalk you across the globe giving too much data to advertisers?

Does that creep from work abuse the system to keep popping up whenever you're out with friends?

Technology

I said the technology exists for this, and that was sort of true. Every device has GPS & an Internet connection. Storing a log of friends and sending them a message is a solved problem.

But is it solved in a decentralised and privacy preserving way?

No one wants to give all this power to one company. Google will build it and kill it. Facebook will sell your secrets to dropshippers. A funky start-up will be acquhired by Apple & restricted to iOS devices.

My location is fuzzed to an acceptable degree of imprecision and then sent… where? To all my friends directly? To a central server? Can k-anonymity help?

Is this a separate app? Everyone seemed to leave FourSquare after they buggered around with it. Perhaps it is just a feature in existing apps?

What's Already There?

Messaging apps like Signal, Telegram, and WhatsApp allow you to share your location with one or more friends.

To me, it feels a bit weird to manually send a dropped pin to some / all of my contact. It also doesn't let you share "tomorrow I will be in…"

Using "Stories" is the common way to share an update with all contacts - but none of them let you automatically share your location in a story.

FourSquare's Swarm app allows you to check in to a "neighbourhood". But there's no obvious way of saying "London" or "Manchester" - and I'm not sure how close to an area you need to be to get an alert that your friend is there.

What's Next?

I don't want to build this. Trying to get everyone I know to adopt a new app isn't going to happen. With the fragmentation of messaging and the lack of interoperability, this is likely to remain an unsolved problem for some time.

So here's my strategy.

• Get back in to using FourSquare. Most of my friends seemed to stop using it back in 2017 when it was split into Swarm. But a few are still on there.
• Manually post a story on Mastodon, BlueSky, Facebook, WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram saying "Visiting Hamburg next week. Anyone want a beer?"
• Hope that something better comes along.

Why is it so hard to passively stalk my friends' locations?

I feel terribly guilty when I visit a new city, post photos of my travels, only to have a friend say "Hey! Why didn't you let me know you were in my neck of the woods?"

Similarly, if I bump into an old acquaintance at a conference, we both tend to say "If only I'd known you were here, we could have had dinner together last night!"

I do enjoy the serendipity of events like FOSDEM - randomly seeing a mate and expressing the joy of spontaneity. But I also like arranging to meet up in advance.

At the moment, my strategy is sending a blast on social media saying "I'm visiting [this city] next week, anyone fancy a beer and a natter?" I've met friends all over Europe, Australia, and New Zealand that way. It mostly works. But I can't help feeling it is inefficient and prone to missing connections.

I even wrote my own code to auto-post FourSquare checkins to my other social media sites.

Here are my ideal scenarios. Imagine something built in to Signal / WhatsApp / Whatever app you already use.

Plan In Advance

I tell my app that I'm going to Barcelona from 14th - 19th February and am happy to meet any of my friends.

✨Background Magic✨

My friend Alice has also planned a trip to Barcelona around those dates. She gets a ping saying that one of her friends is going to be in the same city. Does she want to know more?

So far, so Dopplr.

My friend Bob lives just outside of Barcelona. He's set his "willing to travel" settings to be about 30 minutes, so also receives a ping.

I don't know that either of them have seen the notification until they decide they want to meet.

Spontaneous Fun

I step off the train in Manchester, England England. Perhaps the app notices I'm away from home, or maybe I press the "Anyone Around?" button.

On a map I can see friends who have shared their rough location. I decide to message Chuck to see if he's free for a chat.

Dave notices my location is now within his preferred travel distance. He gives me a ring.

A bit like how FourSquare used to be - but with less precision.

Downsides

The above is very much the "happy path". It doesn't look at any of the knotty problems or grapple with the UI that would be needed to make this work. But we know the technology for sharing location is viable - so what are the social issues that make this so difficult?

Social Awkwardness

"Oh, fuck, Edgar's location says he's in town. Can we pretend to be out of the country?"

Alternatively, "Huh, I know at least a dozen people who live in Skegness. Why aren't any of them responding to me?"

Social pressure and awkwardness are hard problems. No one wants to use the app that makes you feel like a friendless loser.

Privacy

Do you want your friends knowing your every movement? I'm sure some people do, but most probably don't. It's possible to sketch out some vague controls:

• Only send a notification if I push this button.
• Don't send alerts if I am within this radius of my home / work.
• Fuzz my location to the city / state / country level.

Danger

Is it a risk to let people know vaguely where you are? Is meeting up with (semi-) strangers from the Internet a smart life choice? Is having an app stalk you across the globe giving too much data to advertisers?

Does that creep from work abuse the system to keep popping up whenever you're out with friends?

Technology

I said the technology exists for this, and that was sort of true. Every device has GPS & an Internet connection. Storing a log of friends and sending them a message is a solved problem.

But is it solved in a decentralised and privacy preserving way?

No one wants to give all this power to one company. Google will build it and kill it. Facebook will sell your secrets to dropshippers. A funky start-up will be acquhired by Apple & restricted to iOS devices.

My location is fuzzed to an acceptable degree of imprecision and then sent… where? To all my friends directly? To a central server? Can k-anonymity help?

Is this a separate app? Everyone seemed to leave FourSquare after they buggered around with it. Perhaps it is just a feature in existing apps?

What's Already There?

Messaging apps like Signal, Telegram, and WhatsApp allow you to share your location with one or more friends.

To me, it feels a bit weird to manually send a dropped pin to some / all of my contact. It also doesn't let you share "tomorrow I will be in…"

Using "Stories" is the common way to share an update with all contacts - but none of them let you automatically share your location in a story.

FourSquare's Swarm app allows you to check in to a "neighbourhood". But there's no obvious way of saying "London" or "Manchester" - and I'm not sure how close to an area you need to be to get an alert that your friend is there.

What's Next?

I don't want to build this. Trying to get everyone I know to adopt a new app isn't going to happen. With the fragmentation of messaging and the lack of interoperability, this is likely to remain an unsolved problem for some time.

So here's my strategy.

• Get back in to using FourSquare. Most of my friends seemed to stop using it back in 2017 when it was split into Swarm. But a few are still on there.
• Manually post a story on Mastodon, BlueSky, Facebook, WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram saying "Visiting Hamburg next week. Anyone want a beer?"
• Hope that something better comes along.

Why is it so hard to passively stalk my friends' locations?

I feel terribly guilty when I visit a new city, post photos of my travels, only to have a friend say "Hey! Why didn't you let me know you were in my neck of the woods?"

Similarly, if I bump into an old acquaintance at a conference, we both tend to say "If only I'd known you were here, we could have had dinner together last night!"

I do enjoy the serendipity of events like FOSDEM - randomly seeing a mate and expressing the joy of spontaneity. But I also like arranging to meet up in advance.

At the moment, my strategy is sending a blast on social media saying "I'm visiting [this city] next week, anyone fancy a beer and a natter?" I've met friends all over Europe, Australia, and New Zealand that way. It mostly works. But I can't help feeling it is inefficient and prone to missing connections.

I even wrote my own code to auto-post FourSquare checkins to my other social media sites.

Here are my ideal scenarios. Imagine something built in to Signal / WhatsApp / Whatever app you already use.

Plan In Advance

I tell my app that I'm going to Barcelona from 14th - 19th February and am happy to meet any of my friends.

✨Background Magic✨

My friend Alice has also planned a trip to Barcelona around those dates. She gets a ping saying that one of her friends is going to be in the same city. Does she want to know more?

So far, so Dopplr.

My friend Bob lives just outside of Barcelona. He's set his "willing to travel" settings to be about 30 minutes, so also receives a ping.

I don't know that either of them have seen the notification until they decide they want to meet.

Spontaneous Fun

I step off the train in Manchester, England England. Perhaps the app notices I'm away from home, or maybe I press the "Anyone Around?" button.

On a map I can see friends who have shared their rough location. I decide to message Chuck to see if he's free for a chat.

Dave notices my location is now within his preferred travel distance. He gives me a ring.

A bit like how FourSquare used to be - but with less precision.

Downsides

The above is very much the "happy path". It doesn't look at any of the knotty problems or grapple with the UI that would be needed to make this work. But we know the technology for sharing location is viable - so what are the social issues that make this so difficult?

Social Awkwardness

"Oh, fuck, Edgar's location says he's in town. Can we pretend to be out of the country?"

Alternatively, "Huh, I know at least a dozen people who live in Skegness. Why aren't any of them responding to me?"

Social pressure and awkwardness are hard problems. No one wants to use the app that makes you feel like a friendless loser.

Privacy

Do you want your friends knowing your every movement? I'm sure some people do, but most probably don't. It's possible to sketch out some vague controls:

• Only send a notification if I push this button.
• Don't send alerts if I am within this radius of my home / work.
• Fuzz my location to the city / state / country level.

Danger

Is it a risk to let people know vaguely where you are? Is meeting up with (semi-) strangers from the Internet a smart life choice? Is having an app stalk you across the globe giving too much data to advertisers?

Does that creep from work abuse the system to keep popping up whenever you're out with friends?

Technology

I said the technology exists for this, and that was sort of true. Every device has GPS & an Internet connection. Storing a log of friends and sending them a message is a solved problem.

But is it solved in a decentralised and privacy preserving way?

No one wants to give all this power to one company. Google will build it and kill it. Facebook will sell your secrets to dropshippers. A funky start-up will be acquhired by Apple & restricted to iOS devices.

My location is fuzzed to an acceptable degree of imprecision and then sent… where? To all my friends directly? To a central server? Can k-anonymity help?

Is this a separate app? Everyone seemed to leave FourSquare after they buggered around with it. Perhaps it is just a feature in existing apps?

What's Already There?

Messaging apps like Signal, Telegram, and WhatsApp allow you to share your location with one or more friends.

To me, it feels a bit weird to manually send a dropped pin to some / all of my contact. It also doesn't let you share "tomorrow I will be in…"

Using "Stories" is the common way to share an update with all contacts - but none of them let you automatically share your location in a story.

FourSquare's Swarm app allows you to check in to a "neighbourhood". But there's no obvious way of saying "London" or "Manchester" - and I'm not sure how close to an area you need to be to get an alert that your friend is there.

What's Next?

I don't want to build this. Trying to get everyone I know to adopt a new app isn't going to happen. With the fragmentation of messaging and the lack of interoperability, this is likely to remain an unsolved problem for some time.

So here's my strategy.

• Get back in to using FourSquare. Most of my friends seemed to stop using it back in 2017 when it was split into Swarm. But a few are still on there.
• Manually post a story on Mastodon, BlueSky, Facebook, WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram saying "Visiting Hamburg next week. Anyone want a beer?"
• Hope that something better comes along.

Palindromic #Foursquare #SwarmApp check-in number 26,262 yesterday morning at Miller Meadow Forest Preserve (South), Forest Park, Illinois: https://swarmapp.com/user/9218262/checkin/69da6285a907c833a4b60241?s=qpuHOKm8Z-4HfOKBeSxBv_BgLp0

RE: https://mastodon.social/@Bastianoso/116154155821530018

Ich glaube ich habe einen Weg gefunden: Open Street Map → Ort teilen → Kurzbefehl erstellt Kalendereintrag mit Namen und Adresse des Ortes im privaten Kalender. Ganz ohne #Swarm/ #Foursquare #Dutgemacht #did #digitalindependenceday

Hab eine Mail bekommen, dass jemand auf Swarm mit mir befreundet sein möchte.

Swarm?? Das gibt’s noch?? 🤪

#Swarm #Foursquare

Building my own Swarm / Foursquare / Gowalla on OSM

https://blog.notmyhostna.me/posts/building-my-own-swarm-foursquare-gowalla-on-osm

#openstreetmap #swift #ios #rails #foursquare #gowalla #selfhosting

OK gang! I can now automatically crosspost my #FourSquare checkins to Mastodon and BlueSky.

If you use #Swarm and fancy giving it a go, the Python code is at https://gitlab.com/edent/swarmtosocial/-/blob/main/swarmtosocial.py

Right, I've got my #FourSquare API key and can manually post check-ins to #SwarmApp.

Going to see if I can automatically get them to appear on Mastodon 🙂

If you are still on #FourSquare / #Swarm please can you add me as a friend.

You should be able to find me by searching for "edent" or my full name.

Thanks!

Palindromic #Foursquare #SwarmApp check-in number 26,062: at Metra - Berwyn https://swarmapp.com/user/9218262/checkin/6978bc961baf7b59e8d458ee?s=LPdiTvfPQ0gppdXxh81eKDA8-O0

Imports FourSquare / Swarm data into Anchor (dropanchor.app) lexicon. tangled.org/tijs.org/fsq... Tags: #FourSquare #Swarm #Anchor

tijs.org/fsq2anchor

Boundless gets $7.8M to help immigrants navigate the convoluted green card process - Two years ago, former Amazon product manager Xiao Wang stood on the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt San... more: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/FPVtCatx1dU/ #foundationcapital #pioneersquarelabs #venturecapital #sanfrancisco #unitedstates #warbyparker #government #foursquare #boundless #startups #bradfeld #funding #amazon #tc

Merry #SitecoreLunch today. Discussed:

🐮 #Farmville
📍 #Foursquare
🎥 Video storage
📈 #GTM analytics
👉 #Facebook pokes
🛂 ESTA requirements
💰 Copyright extortion
🚨 #Next.js & #React exploits
🖼️ Images in #SitecoreContentHub
🕸️ #SitecorePersonalize + #SitecoreContentHub

See you same time next week! 🥪🥗

Weekly output: teens online (x2), Foursquare

This year has one last full workweek left, which seems like quite enough after everything else that 2024 has served up.

12/10/2014: Teens: Online Time Improves Our Well-Being, Though We Could Use More Sleep, PCMag

After spending Monday at the Family Online Safety Institute’s annual conference in D.C., I wrote up the surprisingly positive results of a survey that organization ordered up about teenage attitudes about time spent online. Lest people point to the Google sponsorship of this report to invalidate its results, I noted other studies that found similar results.

12/12/2014: Teens Spent Less Time on the Top Social Apps This Year, With Two Exceptions, PCMag

Two days later, I wrote up another study of online teenagers–but this one didn’t ask how they felt about where they spent that connected time.

12/14/2014: Foursquare City Guide Checks Out, Shuts Down Its App, PCMag

In this feeling-my-age post, I chronicled the demise of an app that 15 years ago had seemed to have a legit shot at taking Yelp’s place as my go-to service for finding someplace to get a meal.

#4sq #FamilyOnlineSafetyInstitute #FOSI #Foursquare #FoursquareSwarm #locationAware #PewResearchCenter #teenSocialMediaUse #teenageSocialMediaUse

I’m one of the last one still using #Swarm / #foursquare. One of the thing I enjoy is seeing everywhere I’ve checked in the last 15 years. It’s wild.

Here’s how much I cover the map of #Philippines , #Luzon and #Manila

Have ‘The Privacy Talk’ with your business partners - Marc Ellenbogen
Contributor

Share on Twit... - http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/X3yu-_4FH7w/ #digitaladvertising #identitymanagement #verifiedexperts #termsofservice #digitalrights #foursquare #security #startups #eccolumn #lawyers #privacy #echowto #column

“Worship the name ____, foursquare, mystic, wonderful, and the name of His House 418.”

https://library.hrmtc.com/2024/05/09/worship-the-name-____-foursquare-mystic-wonderful-and-the-name-of-his-house-418/

The spatial join?: The end of the spatial join? Vikram Gundeti, CTO of #Foursquare, is reimagining #geospatial for #datascientists by eliminating traditional GIS hurdles and embracing #ML-friendly, agent-ready solutions. Will geodata be seamlessly accessible and...
https://spatialists.ch/posts/2025/08/06-the-spatial-join/ #GIS #GISchat #geospatial #SwissGIS

🌍 Foursquare isn’t just a map — it’s a data-driven platform for discovery and engagement.

This Snipesearch Adclicks feature explains how publishers can claim listings, link their sites, and earn from every visit using Adclicks.

Read here 👉

https://adclicks.thereview.website/monetising-the-foursquare-ecosystem/

#Foursquare #Adclicks #Snipesearch #WebMonetization #Publishing

📍: Bridge 109 - Upperton Road Bridge
ℹ️: road bridge
🗺: https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=52.6256203422884&mlon=-1.14306733266556#map=17/52.6256203422884/-1.14306733266556
📸: Photo by Paul Conneally on Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/98509073@N00/11157848253

#canal #narrowboat #england #uk #flickr #square #squareformat #amaro #iphoneography #instagramapp #uploaded:by=instagram #foursquare:venue=4e69ebf5b0fb8b8a83f4731e

How to export your complete Foursquare checkin history https://aaronparecki.com/2021/07/03/5/export-foursquare-checkin-history

How to export your complete Foursquare checkin history https://aaronparecki.com/2021/07/03/5/export-foursquare-checkin-history

Foursnap? Snapchat tries “Status” location checkins - Today’s teens missed the Foursquare era so Snapchat is giving them another shot with a new feature t... more: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/7Wc_uuLtH2k/ #locationsharing #snapchatstatus #foursquare #checkins #snapchat #snapinc #snapmap #mobile #social #apps #tc

@colinsmatt11 @shaman @Hyolobrika @gabriel

I recently saw a request from someone describing themselves as a prolific photographer in the #Fedilab #Matrix support room, asking if the devs could add a feature to use the EXIF data for the alt tags - they cited extremely non-trivial effort to do that manually.

It obviously issn't for everyone, with most folks preferring to fill out the alt data for the images they upload themselves, but it made a lot of sense for a #prolific_uploader of images in #Fediverse posts.

I'm glad you brought this up, because it's exactly what I was thinking when I became aware that stripping the EXIF data was the default on #Friendica, and disabling that feature is an "opt-out" option.

I don't even know if there's still such a site as #Foursquare, but about ten years ago it was a popular "check-in" site that integrated with #Faceplant.

You would basically do a check-in wherever you were and people could track you via lat/lon or physical address or the business name IIRC, and you could include pics too I think - that's one use case.

Another very good one, snapping a pic and then later uploading it as a Fediverse post in #Friendica (there's an OSM geolocation plugin), which I gather could generate a map based on the EXIF data in their photo.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen pics and wondered where the photos were taken. #Pixelfed should have such an option (does it?) w/OSM mapping toggle on upload.

I don't think any other Fediverse server platforms have that.

Extrapolating that EXIF data for the alt tags in photos uploaded as part of posts (with corresponding maps even) sounds like a great idea - but preferably not as a default setting lolz.

On another note, there's a shitload of really stupid dope farmers here in Humboldt county posting pics of their weed fields on #InstaSPAM, and then wondering why they're getting helicopter flyovers and "Abatement Letters" from the county, followed by the caravans that roll up the mountain, raid, and destroy their crops lolz.

That's what apps like #ImagePipe are for (stripping EXIF data before posting publicly). ImagePipe is available at F-Droid, BTW. 😜

@Laurien (pls pass on to Sir Spencer - he'll get a kick out of that!)

#tallship #FOSS #privacy #geolocation #EXIF #check_in

⛵

.

Extra Crunch roundup: BNPL bonanza, scraping Toast’s S-1/A, early-stage SaaS pricing - Are founders in fundraising mode short-sighted when it comes to working with Chine... - http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/xlbUZAhdhSs/ #extracrunchroundup #sophiealcorn #foursquare #freshworks #ecroundup #startups #klarna #paypal #china #asia #tc

I have duplicated the original dude on the #Dodgeball site as an illustration in #Procreate. Locative services are in the air with the announced shutdown of #Foursquare City Guides. Call this... fan art. https://artlung.com/blog/2024/10/21/dodgeball-dude/

📍: Winding Hole Goytre Wharf
ℹ️: winding hole
🗺: https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=51.7510130406495&mlon=-2.99627632496584#map=17/51.7510130406495/-2.99627632496584
📸: Photo by MrSimonWood on Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/47981017@N06/8105443270

#canal #narrowboat #wales #uk #flickr #square #lofi #squareformat #monmouthshireandbreconcanal #iphoneography #instagramapp #uploaded:by=instagram #foursquare:venue=4bf00b34d4f70f47ed63390f

Q&A with J Crowley, Head of Product at Airbnb Lux, on what makes a great PM - The role of Product Manager can mean very different things at various companies. Should a product ma... more: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/GHHm4CfftW4/ #productmanagement #denniscrowley #foursquare #personnel #blueapron #startups #talent #airbnb #swarm #tc

Geospatial startup Unfolded.ai acquired by Foursquare - Well, that was fast.
Just a few months after raising its seed round, Unfolded.ai a... - http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Yx2t78swah8/ #geospatialanalytics #advertisingtech #foursquare #ma

Quick glance at the new #Foursquare dataset with 100M places worldwide [1], based on do-me's data upload [2]. See the jupyter notebook here [3].

[1]: https://location.foursquare.com/resources/blog/products/foursquare-open-source-places-a-new-foundational-dataset-for-the-geospatial-community/
[2]: https://huggingface.co/datasets/do-me/foursquare_places_100M
[3]: https://code.ad.ioer.info/wip/snippets/html/2024-11-25_foursquare_parquet.html

#geopandas #geoparquet, #python #datascience #datashader #jupyter

Chasing hype is human nature: The tyranny of startup trends - Victor Echevarria
Contributor

Share on Tw... - http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/68p379DLjqI/ #venturecapital #ecnewsanalysis #sharingeconomy #privateequity #foursquare #startups #eccolumn #funding #column #lime #lyft #uber

Schon 16 Jahre her?

#Swarm #4sq #Foursquare #local

#Swarm kann von einen Tag auf den anderen ganz schön viel Arbeit sein. #4sq ist kaum out. #foursquare

Any #Foursquare #4sq #swarm admins / super users at #38c3?