Foursquare has just pushed a massive update to its iPhone app and the location-based service now includes the ability to add photos and comments to your location check-ins.
The photos for the Foursquare iPhone app comes thanks to a partnership with Instagram, which is the hipster app of choice nowadays for sharing photos. The company is also hooking up with Foodspotting to allow users to send photos of their food when you’re checking in at restaurants.
Comments will work with the push-notification system, so you’ll know when your pals leave you a note. Look for this updated Foursquare app to land on Android later this week, BlackBerry and webOS will get its version in January, but there’s no word on the Windows Phone 7 versions.
The ability to share photos is a key feature, as I believe sharing photos is the bedrock of any successful social network. That’s why I’m shocked Yahoo has never been able to build a good one, as it has a lot of photo sharers with its Flickr site.
Sharing photos has been the basis for multiple hip iPhone apps lately. Along with the aforementioned Instagram (which has nearly 1 million users), Path just launched as another way to share your pictures with up to 50 friends at a time.
Just as importantly, this move helps the Foursquare iPhone app stay a few steps ahead of the Facebook Places program, which includes the ability to check-in to locations. The world’s largest social network has recently added the ability to get location-based deals through this service, so I don’t think we’ll have to wait too long to get photo-sharing from Facebook.
It’s also an interesting time for Foursquare, as the buzz and momentum over check-in services seems to have slowed down. Will this new update help reinvigorate users and attract new customers?
[Via Foursquare]