Fans can unlock the badge by following UEFA.com on foursquare and checking in at the stadium during the festivities in the run-up to the match or by including “UEFA Champions League” in their shout when they check in during the game, wherever they happen to be watching it. The unlock text reads:

Congratulations! You have just unlocked the exclusive 2012 UEFA Champions League final badge. After beating Europe’s best, it all comes down to this for Chelsea and Bayern, enjoy the match!

“This is going to be a true digital festival,” said Alexandre Fourtoy, UEFA’s Director of Communications, in a press release. ”Our goal is to engage fans in Munich, as well as those around the world, in the UEFA Champions League final festivities by using a range of digital platforms that are easy to use and interact with. We hope that the new Foursquare activation coupled with Google+ hangouts will bring the finals of the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Women’s Champions League to life for those fans who can’t attend the event.”

Last year’s badge was sponsored by Sony Ericcsson, but was only available at the game itself.

What do you think of the badge?

UEFA Champions League Final gets a badge for the second year in a row originally appeared on About Foursquare

With a bonus like that, you’d never oust me as Mayor.

The ‘wichcraft deal is the best foursquare Mayor special I’ve seen. Most places with a free dining deal for the Mayor offer it just once per week or only on certain days.

The very generous particulars, according to ‘wichcraft, are:

The mayor of each location is invited to dine in or take out one meal per day. The mayor’s complimentary meal includes a hand-crafted sandwich or an entrée-sized salad or a soup & ½ sandwich combination, as well as a beverage and a signature ’wichcraft cream’wich.

‘wichcraft has locations in New York City, San Francisco and Las Vegas.

What do you think of the new ‘wichcraft deal?

If there were a ‘wichcraft around here, there’s no way you’d ever oust me as Mayor originally appeared on About Foursquare

Users will be able to unlock the badge by following Variety and their Cannes Film Festival list, then checking in to one of the venues on the list. The venues include a variety of restaurants and hotels around the Cannes area and Variety has left a tip at each one featuring their recommendations.

The unlock text reads:

You’ve found one of Variety’s favorite spots to rub elbows with the Power Players. Now go brag to your agent. But this is one payday they don’t get 10% of.

Variety says that by unlocking the badge, you’ll “qualify for a chance to win event tickets, VIP experiences and more,” although it’s unclear what those prizes are or how you could win them.

Will you be in Cannes? What do you think of the badge?

Variety and foursquare launch a badge for the Cannes Film Festival originally appeared on About Foursquare

Like standard Facebook check-ins (or place tags), your foursquare check-ins now appear on the Facebook map found at the top of user timelines. Any photos posted with the check-in also appear there. When you check in at a business with a Facebook page, you’ll find that the check-in is linked to the proper page.

Strangely, the check-ins do not appear in the “nearby” view found in the Facebook mobile apps.

Foursquare was originally named as a launch partner for Facebook’s Places initiative (including an on-stage appearance by VP of Mobile and Partnerships Holger Luedorf at the launch event), but never integrated with it. Sending that data to Facebook (in a way they could actually use it programatically) was seen by many as a raw deal for foursquare since they’d be handing valuable location history data to Facebook.

Previously, foursquare reported that approximately 20% of check-ins were shared with Facebook. This change means it makes sense to send more of your interesting check-ins to Facebook since they actually have a lasting appearance on the site. As foursquare’s new history page does for browsing our personal history, this now makes it possible for our friends’ to browse our location history (at least what’s shared with Facebook) and see the places we’ve been.

What do you think of the change?

/Thanks to David Wilder for the tip!

Foursquare check-ins posted to Facebook finally appear on the timeline map originally appeared on About Foursquare

Fans can earn the badge by following MCFC on foursquare and checking in at Etihad Stadium, City Square, and City Stores. There are also ten “Heart of the City” venues around the world where you can earn the badge by checking in during the games, including sites in the US, Canada, Australia, the UAE and France. You can find them on a foursquare list the club has created.

The first 30 fans who check in at City Square on Sunday will unlock a flash special that entitles them to a free MCFC shirt courtesy of EA Sports. Other MCFC venues will be offering specials as well. Fans in Baltimore will be able to unlock drink specials at Sláinte Irish Pub when they show their badge upon ordering.

“Innovating with digital media has been a huge focus for us over the last year,” said Richard Ayers of MCFC’s digital team. “We’re constantly striving to build more meaningful and rewarding relationships with fans, wherever they are in the world, and this deal is a fantastic addition to the City services. Foursquare’s a great company to work with and we’re delighted to be the first in football to offer our fans this service.”

What do you think of the partnership?

UPDATE: The badge is now available. The unlock text reads:

Blue moon, you saw me standing alone, without a dream in my heart, without a love of my own. Thank you for your support! #MCFC

Manchester City Football Club partners with foursquare for a new badge originally appeared on About Foursquare

To earn the badge, you’ll need to check in at five of foursquare’s recommended spots in the city. As with all city badges, the list was developed with help from local residents, so you can be sure it will point you to some quality spots, from tourist spots to nightclubs popular with the locals.

The unlock text reads:

From the girls of Ipanema to the die-hard fans at Maracana, Rio knows. Spend the afternoon sipping Caipirinhas and feasting on feijoada, then head to Lapa for some Samba. Catch a ride home on a Kombi and do it all again tomorrow!

Foursquare says they’ll begin rolling out the international city badge winners next week.

What do you think of the Carioca badge?

Rio de Janeiro gets a foursquare city badge originally appeared on About Foursquare

The change — which will be implemented in early June, giving app developers time to adjust — eliminates the ability for users to see the strangers who are checked in to a venue without being checked in to the same venue themselves (“much like how the users could see each other by looking around in real life,” says Patil in the announcement). Users will still be able to see where their friends are checked in whether they’re checked in to the same venue or not.

Creepy apps like Girls Around Me and Nock Nock rely on the data foursquare provides about stranger locations to display a list of people who are checked in nearby filtered by gender. Without that data available in the foursquare API, they become worthless, since they’ll only be able to see your friends’ locations at any place you’re not currently checked in.

Eliminating that data, though, also has an effect on some less-creepy apps that are designed to help you find strangers you should meet nearby. Sonar, whose “places” tab uses results from foursquare to show random strangers nearby so it can determine if you have any shared interests or friends, is one of those apps. CEO Brett Martin says the impact of the change will be minor for his app:

Sonar leverages data from across a number of sources, including Foursquare, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, so our users’ experience will not be negatively impacted. We work closely with Foursquare and are already in the process of making some minor adjustments on the back-end to accommodate the Foursquare API changes.

Assisted Serendipity, an early favorite of foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley, relies exclusively on the “here now” data to find venues where the gender ratio has tipped in your favor. Without individual user data for strangers, it essentially heads to the dead pool.

Most foursquare users are unlikely to notice the change, which will also affect foursquare’s official apps. They’ll be able to see other people that they’ve checked in with, but won’t be able to browse other venues to see who’s checked in nearby (unless they’re friends, of course). That’s not an incredibly popular use case for the app anyway, especially as it shifts more toward social discovery and less toward friend finding.

This change patches foursquare’s only real security hole, finally restricting all personal location data strictly to friends the user has explicitly accepted or people who are checked in to the same place (where they could see you and report your location anyway). Foursquare has always been a safe service when used properly, but this should put to rest the final doubts anyone may have about signing up and sharing their location.

What do you think of the change? Will you miss finding strangers at places you’re not checked in? Does this make you feel more secure about sharing your location data?

Foursquare alters API to eliminate apps like Girls Around Me originally appeared on About Foursquare

According to the Journal, foursquare plans to:

let merchants buy special placement for promotions of personalized local offers in July in a redesigned version of its app. All users will be able to see the specials, but must check into the venue to redeem them.

Later in the interview, Crowley goes on to say:

The question [merchants] always ask us: How do we act on these different groups? They always want to target specific segments of those customers, whether they are new, repeat or lapsed customers. That is one thing we are getting pretty good at being able to segment out.

Tying these two statements together, it appears the personalized offers foursquare is rolling out will be targeted to different types of customers based on their history. One user who visits a place regularly might receive an offer designed to keep them coming back, while a user who no longer visits an establishment might receive a better, more lucrative offer designed to lure them back in. Others could potentially be targeted based on demographics, much as Facebook allows with their advertising.

Merchants are, of course, more willing to pay for targeted advertising than they are the general offers foursquare offers for free today, making this foursquare’s first real attempt at monetization of the platform. When asked if the company needs to raise more money, Crowley replied:

It’s a little too early to tell. We are in a pretty strong capital position. We are actively experimenting with different ways of monetizing our data and a lot of the relationships we have with merchants. We’re due for a few more quarters of experimentation before we have to make a call on that. But I am pretty optimistic about our chances.

Indeed, time will tell if these new personalized offers work to woo in paying advertisers and merchants. Foursquare isn’t the first social network to incur monetization struggles and it won’t be the last. The data they’ve collected about the real world preferences and habits of their users, though, puts them in an enviable position as long as they can find a way to make it work for advertisers.

Foursquare to offer personalized coupons starting in July originally appeared on About Foursquare

In the Dunkin’ MIB3 Capture game, you play an agent who’s captured an alien in your phone. To keep Spikey happy, you have to feed him virtual DD iced coffee and donuts. The more you feed him, the more content you’ll unlock, including a laser-blaster game and tic tac toe.

Playing with Spikey (he loves tickling, spinning, dancing and more) earns you more iced coffee and donuts — as does checking in at DD on foursquare, which you can do right from within the app.

MIB3 Capture isn’t going to become your favorite game overnight, but it is a fun little app that can kill a few minutes of your time. It’s free for Android and iOS, but only available through June 30.

On top of the app, Dunkin’ Donuts is launching a few new menu items in honor of the movie. You can try the Black Cocoa Creme Iced Coffee, Undercover Black Cocoa Donut or the Chocolate Lunarmax Donut. There’s also a Twitter trivia contest you can enter each Friday in May by following Dunkin’ Donuts and answering the trivia question correctly (with the #BlackFriDDay hashtag, of course). Winners will receive a $33 DD gift card and prizes from the movie.

What do you think of the game? Are you excited for the MIB3 premiere?

Your foursquare check-ins help feed Spikey in Dunkin’ Donuts’ new MIB3 app originally appeared on About Foursquare

The feeds date to a time before developers were building applications on the foursquare API, which makes it easier and more secure to connect applications to your foursquare check-in data. They’re still available, though, because not every application has integrated with foursquare.

You’ll find the feeds in the lower right-hand corner of the foursquare history page behind the “RSS/ICS/KML” link (on the previous history page it appeared as just an RSS icon). The link to each feed includes a secret key that gives applications access to your check-ins. Be sure to keep this private, because anyone who has your secret key essentially has access to all your check-ins, both in the past and the future.

Here are a few examples of things you can do with the feeds:

• Add your check-in history to Google Calendar (learn how) or iCal (learn how) using the ICS feed
• Display your check-ins on Google Maps
• Visualize your history in Google Earth
• Display your recent check-ins on a blog using any standard RSS plug-in

What creative ways have you come up with to use the feeds foursquare provides?

Foursquare’s hidden gem: the feeds page originally appeared on About Foursquare