Foursquare Lands Another Major Partnership With 'The Today Show'
NBC show joins Wall Street Journal, Pepsi, and History Channel as recent arrivals on the geo-social platform.
Another week, another partnership for Foursquare. The geo-social gaming brand has inked a deal with NBC’s “The Today Show” to help promote the morning program’s “Toyota Concert Series.”
People who attend the summer performances at Rockefeller Center in New York City and “check-in” via the locations-based app can earn three different “badges.” They include a “newbie” badge for one concert check-in, a “Roker” badge for three check-ins, and “10 to 10” for 10 check-ins.
“The Today Show” also gets a dedicated Foursquare page. And according to an NBC spokesperson, Foursquare will be mentioned on-air repeatedly.
Indeed, Foursquare appears set to ride a wave of coveted national TV exposure. For instance, weatherman/personality Al Roker announced the partnership this morning in a show where Sting took the stage for the opening week of the outdoor concert series. Other headliners will include Christina Aguilera, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Enrique Iglesia, Ke$ha, and Carrie Underwood.
The partnership follows a consistent stream of major Foursquare partnerships in recent weeks. On May 7, the geo-social firm unveiled a partnership with The Wall Street Journal, where Foursquare has appeared on a homepage display ad that touts its service.
On April 29, the company revealed an agreement with Pepsi that entailed the beverage company getting a live notification when Foursquare users “check in” near stores carrying its products. Pepsi will be able to pitch special offers to those users.
On April 13, The History Channel came on board. Since then, the New York-based cable network has been promoting the 12-hour miniseries, “America The Story of Us,” via the location-based mobile app. It is providing Foursquare users with historical tidbits about 1,000 landmarks where they can check-in around the country.
All these partnerships come as Facebook plans a geo-location service of its own. Industry players have speculated that Facebook’s scale – at least 425 million users – will allow its forthcoming service to not only contend with Foursquare but squash it.
And it’s been rumored that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg flew to New York last weekend to meet with Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley. Whether that means the two were negotiating a deal of some kind remains to be seen.
All in all, the almost nonstop attention recently given to the geo-locations space seems to signal that the medium may be trending towards critical mass in terms of public awareness. Can “checking in” actually go mainstream? Well, if anyone can help with that mission, Al Roker can.
Follow Christopher Heine on Twitter at @ChrisClickZ.
