Foursquare to test users by testing mobile advertisements
Skift Take
How many times can a user see a "Promoted Updates" about Best Buy's weekend sale before hurling their smartphone across the room? We are about to find out.
The arrival of advertising on social media is taking another step forward — or backward, depending on your beliefs about commercialization — as Foursquare begins a pilot program to test paid ads.
The pilot program, which has been the subject of recent speculation, is to begin on Wednesday. Foursquare — the mobile app that lets users share their locations with friends — is calling the ads Promoted Updates, echoing the Promoted Tweets terminology used by Twitter.
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