For me, email has mostly become a relic of the past. I hardly ever check it, but there is one email I get every day that I look forward to that forces me to check it at least once each morning. That email comes from 4squareand7years ago, showing me my foursquare checkins from exactly one year ago.
Today 4squareand7years ago relaunched as Timehop, focusing not just on your foursquare checkins, but on your social media profiles as a whole, including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The daily emails will now include a recap of your activities from a year ago across all four networks.
Timehop will also show off a new feature 4squareand7years ago users haven’t seen yet: foursquare photos. Tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of foursquare launching photo support, so those photos will start rolling out in tomorrow’s Timehop emails. I’ve actually been going back and adding photos from my DSLR to my foursquare checkins specifically so they’ll show up in these emails.
Built by TechStars NYC alums Benny Wong and Jonathan Wegener, 4squareand7yearsago was one of the most popular foursquare-focused apps of 2011. It launched at foursquare’s first hack day in February and has since been touted foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley in almost every talk he’s given this year.
I’m a big fan of 4squareand7yearsago (and sister service and7yearsagram — a similar site for Instagram photos), so I’m excited to see what the team will do now that they’re incorporating posts from my other social networks. If nothing else, Timehop is at least a hell of a lot easier to type.
What do you think of the addition of Facebook and Twitter to the popular 4squareand7yearsago emails?
#1 by Ching Yu on December 19, 2011 - 3:28 pm
Run, don’t walk, and sign up for this! You won’t regret it, even one year later!
#2 by George on December 19, 2011 - 3:40 pm
I liked the emails as well, but a big drawback to this is the Facebook connection. Without it, you’re not wanted.
So I’ll no longer have it.
#3 by Chris Thompson on December 19, 2011 - 3:53 pm
For a startup like Timehop, Facebook provides a super easy onboarding process that makes it simple for something like 99.9% of people to sign up (I know that’s an exageration, but it’s a big number). They’ll eventually support non-Facebookers, but I’d much rather see a startup get up and running than waiting just because they’re building support for the Facebook-paranoid.
#4 by Robert Aitchison on December 20, 2011 - 3:36 pm
They didn’t have to “build” anything, 4squareand7yearsago never needed facebook to work.
They should have waited till the new system had at least the same usability as the old before they pulled the plug.
#5 by Robert Aitchison on December 20, 2011 - 3:34 pm
I’ve been using 4squareand7yearsago for months now but as I don’t use Facebook I’m also kicked out in the cold. They should allow users to remain on the legacy system until they get their technical act together.
#6 by Pedro Rocha on January 8, 2012 - 7:01 pm
Hey, great site!
One question how can you add photos to your old check-ins?
#7 by Chris Thompson on January 8, 2012 - 11:04 pm
From the app, go to your checkin history (on the me tab) and tap the checkin you want to add a photo to. You’ll be able to add the photo from the checkin detail screen, just like you would a comment.
#8 by Pedro Rocha on January 9, 2012 - 4:26 pm
But for your dslr? d’you send it to your phone and than you upload via 4sq app?
An web based app for that would be awesome.
#9 by Chris Thompson on January 9, 2012 - 4:28 pm
Yes, that’s how I usually do it. I edit a lot of photos directly on the iPad, so it’s pretty simple that way. If I edit on the desktop, I put them in my Dropbox, then open the Dropbox app on my iPad, save the appropriate photos and upload them via foursquare. It’s a pain, but it works.
I would LOVE for someone to build a good web-based uploader, but haven’t found one yet.