Like+1SharePin ItShareLocation-based platform Foursquare — which recently announced a slew of merchant tools — is ready to take London by storm.Though Foursquare was hindered from doing some things because of its partnership with American Express (the Olympics, as Morgan Freeman tells us, are proudly sponsored by Visa), the service will definitely have a presence on the ground.“We have seen some more drastic growth in the UK, but it’s hard to say what it is attributed to,” says Omid Ashtari, Foursquare’s director of business development for European markets. “We have had a great AmEx launch, some strategic partnerships and the redesign in the last few weeks, so there are many factors.”That’s thanks in part to Ashtari’s work developing partnerships in Europe that are akin to Foursquare’s early success with Starbucks and Bravo. These deals bolstered the startup’s growth and made people realize that Foursquare isn’t just a game-driven, badge-unlocking product; there’s actually a lot of content and even some specials. “We really want to replicate the success that we had over in Europe,” Ashtari says, especially in the UK, which is one of Foursquare’s biggest markets.Ashtari has been speaking with retailers, publishers, broadcasters and sports teams to establish partnerships and get them on board with Foursquare, which is building out a team for further European business development
Source article:
Olympic Check-Ins: Hot Foursquare Deals and Badges for London 2012
