Foursquare adds social sharing options to desktop Explore results to make sharing with friends easier

Foursquare yesterday added a tiny but important button to their desktop Explore results. It allows users to share their results to Facebook and Twitter so their friends can benefit from the power of Explore.

Ever since Foursquare opened up Explore to non-users, you’ve been able to copy and paste a link to the Explore page that was accessible to anyone. Few users, though, knew that was possible.

The new “link” button makes that much more obvious by showing the link — and even offering to shorten it — directly on the page. It includes buttons that allow sharing the link to Twitter and Facebook automatically.

I often see questions from friends along the lines of “Does anyone know any good coffee shops near Fountain Square?” I typically respond with a link to the Foursquare Explore page and then mention one or two that I’m particularly fond of. It gives them a map, recommendations from other users and more without me having to link to each one individually.

With the new button, Foursquare hopes more users will do the same thing and share links to those Explore pages now that they’ve made it more obvious that it’s an option.