Foursquare hits back in the battle of location based services

DESPITE Facebook’s launch of location based services (LBS) this week, it is being reported that Foursquare yesterday had its biggest day ever in terms of sign-ups.

It’s a moot point amongst industry observers as to whether the launch of Facebook Places would destroy Foursquare, or enhance it by bringing greater awareness to LBS. At the moment, the latter option appears to be the case, as Facebook is introducing the concept of location based social media to its 500 million users.

Foursquare currently has 2.8 million members which clearly looks set to rise, especially as some web sources have accused Facebook Places of copying from existing location-based social networks like Foursquare and Gowalla.

Thus far Facebook Places has only been launched in the US, but there are imminent plans for a global roll-out. The new service is currently live on the Facebook iPhone app in the US and an advanced version its mobile site.

In an amusing twist to the story the Facebook Places logo is – you guessed it – something looking rather like a number 4 in a square. Let the conspiracy theories commence!

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