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Foursquare Founder Tweets About Facebook's 'Places' App

By Ben Fractenberg | August 20, 2010 9:55am | Updated on August 21, 2010 9:48am
The new Facebook Places application launched on Thursday.
The new Facebook Places application launched on Thursday.
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Facebook

By Ben Fractenberg

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

MANHATTAN — Foursquare, the popular Manhattan-based social media application, got a surge in new user sign-ups after Facebook launched its new "Places" application, company co-founder Dennis Crowley tweeted Thursday.

Facebook's new application, launched Thursday, mimics Foursquare, which allows users to "check in" from various locations around the city and share that information with friends. It doesn't, however, duplicate Foursquare's popular feature that allows people to become "mayors" of the places they visit.

While Facebook is late to the location-based social networking party, it does bring its 500 million users with it. But so far it seems the app is helping Foursquare.

"[T]oday was @foursquare's biggest day ever in terms of new user signups," Crowley tweeted.

He's also taken to Twitter to poke fun at Facebook.

“Call from my 86 yr old grandma: "Hello. I want to know if this Face-Book is like yours. It sounds like Four-Squared, but without the fun,” he tweeted.

Currently Facebook Places only works on the iPhone, but the company is expected to release a version for Android and BlackBerry phones.

Foursquare, which is based in the East Village, currently has close to 3 million users and is available on the iPhone, BlackBerry, Android and Palm phones.

Crowley has at least one historical example that could assuage his concerns. To one Twitter user who worried Facebook would overwhelm Foursquare, he wrote:

“Ha, and I bet you were the guy betting Facebook was gonna kill Twitter too. :)”