Foursquare is a location-based social network that awards users for “checking-in” to venues in a city on a mobile device.

Foursquare was created by Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai in 2009. Crowley had previously created another geolocation-based social network, Dodgeball, which was acquired by Google in 2005. Google shut down Dodgeball in 2009 and replaced it with Google Latitude. Originally available only in 100 metro areas, Foursquare became available worldwide in January 2010. As of January 2014, Foursquare had more than 45 million users and 5 billion check-ins worldwide.

Foursquare allows users to connect with friends and broadcast their location across other networks such as Twitter and Facebook. The service has game-like features to entice users to engage with the Foursquare regularly, including points, badges, and “mayorships” for the most check-ins at a location.

Foursquare users can leave “tips” and bookmark venues, allowing them to use the service similar to a city guide like Yelp. Businesses have responded by creating deals specifically for Foursquare users, and the company lets businesses access information about customers who check-in.

In 2014, Foursquare split its service in two, creating a new app, Swarm, focused on check-ins and retooling the Foursquare app to center on exploration.