The king of location based services, Foursquare, raised $20 million in financing, according to a blog post by the company and various media reports.
The once small start-up that was an acquisition rumor of Facebook and Yahoo, is now valued at $95 million, according to reports.
The fusion of cash proves that Foursquare is leading the location-based services pack by a big margin. However, now that it appears that an acquisition is out of the question, where does Foursquare go from here?
Here are 20 million thoughts (well, maybe just a few) as to the current state of the service and its future.
They Love NY
The company blog post on the cash raising, shows a couple of pics from the companies brand new NY location. What does the location matter? Well, they will be in the hub of fashion, retail, media and entertainment — all sectors that play nicely with marketing and advertising tie-ins with Foursquare, i.e. movie premieres, fashion shows, big media events, etc.
It's Not A Fad
"Checking in" was a fad for social media geeks. Now, there are more and more people using the service (just peak at your Facebook stream to see what I'm talking about). Foursquare is the "new thing" but is taking off because of our societies obsession with all things mobile (see the story about Facebook users being more active on mobile devices than they are on the web). Simply put, Foursquare isn't a fad any more and has become the Facebook of location-based services.
There Will Be An Acquisition
Yes, you read that right. There will be a Foursquare acquisition. But instead of the service being bought, it will buy a service of its own. Yes, be on the look out for services like Whrrl, Loopt and maybe even Gowalla to get snatched up by Foursquare. Why, you ask? Well, every Foursquare power move (20 million, moving to NY), takes a notch out of the second tier and third tier players — services that either need to close up shop, or will be forced to sell in order to make some type of money. Better to make something than nothing.
Article first published as 20 Million Thoughts on Foursquare's Success on Technorati.