In March 2009 Foursquare launched at the SXSW interactive festival in Austin, TX.
Foursquare is a location-based mobile platform that makes cities more interesting to explore, by checking in via a smartphone app or SMS, users share their location with friends while collecting points and virtual badges.
In November 2009 after a round of angel funding from several investors including Union Square Ventures and O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, Foursquare launch their API.
At the time of API launch, Foursquare had an impressive set of applications developed by a closed group of partners including anAndroid application and augmented reality with Layar.
Even with growing competition from early mover Gowalla and major players like Facebook and Google, Foursquare is still one of the dominant mobile location-sharing and check-in platforms.
