Foursquare Releases New Logo Before Splitting Its Product in Half

Foursquare announced in May that it would end the local check-in as we know it and split into two products, a local discovery service named Foursquare and a check-in service named Swarm.

In preparation for a complete site and app overhaul in early August, Foursquare revealed a new logo today for its eponymous product. It also began directing users of the Foursquare app to check-in to locations using the Swarm app (see image, below).

If users want to keep checking in, they are going to have to download Swarm by tomorrow. That’s when Foursquare will officially kill the check-in on its app, even though the total service overhaul will not be revealed until next month. According to Foursquare two-thirds of its users are already using Swarm.

Foursquare’s blog describes this as a logical evolution: “This is the beginning of the ‘personalized local search’ future we’ve been talking about since we started Foursquare. It’s been built with the help of our amazing 50,000,000-strong community, with all your tips, check-ins, photos, and the smarts we layered on top of that.”

These changes are all part of Foursquare trying to find a way to make more money. Later this year it will begin charging third-parties for access to its information about local businesses. It faces challenges on this from from Yelp, which recently announced it would make its local information more readily available, as well as Google’s local product.

Changes to the Foursquare app (right) will now prompt users to check in via a second app, Swarm.