Creators Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai drummed up the free, location-based social network in March of 2009, which differs from Facebook and Google's offerings by using game-like mechanics. As incentives, Crowley and Selvadurai originally created 16 virtual badges awarded to users based on the number of points they accrue. Frequent the same shop four times in a row and get a "Bender" badge; send 5 birthday shout-outs to other Foursquare members and receive the "16 Candles" crest. And if a particular user happens to be the member who checks into a location the most, they become that spot's "Mayor." To entice the social network's 5 million users, some businesses now award those who check in from their venue with discounts and promotions. The result so far: 2 million check-ins and 25,000 new users added every day.
Crowley and company are so keen on their vision of a real-world experience augmented by Foursquare they reportedly turned down a $140 million buyout offer and raised $20 million in funding from investors like Andreesen Horowitz. But Foursquare still has a long way to go to catch up with Facebook's 500 million userbase.
