Foursquare Splits

Foursquare is making a fairly drastic shift in approach, splitting its service in two to account for recent developments and checkin’s slow descent. The plan is to split the service into one app, called Swarn, and another app retaining all  the familiar Foursquare branding. Swarm will encapsulate the part of the business that lets users broadcast their information to friends and family, allowing people to gather around geo-tagged spots. The traditional Foursquare app will relaunch this summer as a discovery-focused app, designed to provide users with discovery options for new bars, hangout spots, and the like. The latter app is expected to relaunch this summer, and it signals a larger push to maintain the company’s attention to personalization, with the realization that consolidation was necessary around what the app does well itself.