Foursquare passes 5 million users

The check-in service Foursquare now has more than 5 million users but will having the early lead be enough to keep it ahead of the pack?

According to Mashable, the company said:

“Though there are over 5 million user IDs in the Foursquare community, our user IDs don’t necessarily match up to our actual number of user accounts. That said, we do expect to hit 5 million next week.”

The company can be credited with kicking off the check-in craze, as it first gained traction with the early adopters and has slowly seeped into the mainstream. Foursquare has reportedly turned down multiple acquisition offers from the likes of Yahoo in order to build out a larger business.

Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley can afford to hold out on selling out because he already has plenty of cash from selling Dodgeball to Google years ago. Reports suggest he wasn’t happy with a large company not being able to expand on his location-based vision, so look for Foursquare to continue to go at it as an independent company.

The competition is going to be fierce though, as companies like Gowalla and SCVNGR are also going after the check-in crowd. There’s also growing competition in niche check-in markets.

If you want to check-in to restaurants, many of the Yelp apps have your back. If you want to shop, shopkick and Checkpoints (to an extent) can help your with location-based shopping.

Of course, the big gorilla in the room is Facebook Places because it can leverage the world’s largest social network and its more than 500 million users. It recently launched a deals platform for check-in deals, which could really spur the adoption among many non-tech enthusiasts.

Foursquare will be able to ride the overall rise in check-in services that could occur with Places but it needs to offer more value to the consumer to survive.

[Via Foursquare]