Foursquare Concept

I’m a big fan of foursquare. Like most people I use it to find places and save money — and it can be very useful. Now there are few things I wish the app did which it currently doesn’t. Two of them are shown in the mock-ups above which I will detail.

Explore

Currently Explore is based on what you can find now. What if you can find things that are scheduled to happen? Like a special in a restaurant that will happen 2 days from now or a concert that will happen near you next week. This can be very helpful if you are looking/planning for things to do — great for tourists. A Now/Later button on the Explore tab can let users easily switch between finding things to do now and for a later time. Categories in the Later page can be shows, concerts, games etc. Users can find things do in a specific time by going to the new filter which now accounts time.

Ideally users will be able to make reservations or buy tickets right from the app. To make these functions possible and also to just show upcoming events require partnerships with companies like opentable and ticketmaster. Opportunities here are amazing and these should be win-win for all parties — especially the users.

Bookmarks

Bookmarks are things a user plans on doing and are designed to supplement Explore. Let’s say you found a concert that will happen a week from now. You can bookmark the concert if you plan on going and/or to remind yourself — now others can see your plans (if shared). Since you can see what others have bookmarked especially your friends you can make decisions based on that info. New filter now accounts friends’ bookmarks too. Bookmarks are similar to To-Dos and Lists but are mostly for time-sensitive events. A webpage for bookmarks can also be very helpful in discovery and making plans — like Sosh.

I’m sure the team at foursquare are working on something similar if not something infinitely better as I believe these are natural progressions of the product. I’ve met a few members of the team (great people) and have no doubt they have big plans for the future.

Originally published at razeeb.com on Mar 24th, 2012.