Foursquare launches new venue pages for iPhones

Foursquare today launched a new version of their venue pages that is much friendlier when viewed on touch-screen mobile phones iPhones. The pages condense everything from the desktop version into a single column easily viewable on the narrower screens of mobile devices.

As CEO Dennis Crowley tweeted a few weeks ago, this is a step in foursquare’s move to integrate with Facebook places:

Yeah, it’s in the works. (and one of the reasons we haven’t pushed the [Facebook Places] integration live yet)

This will make the venue pages easier to read when users click through to them from the Facebook mobile app. Foursquare rival Gowalla sends users to their desktop site, which makes the pages difficult to read and navigate on mobile devices.

On the new mobile venue pages, clicking the phone number will automatically dial it, while clicking the map attempts to open it in the native Google Maps app. For logged out users, a “join” button at the top of the screen takes you — at least on the iPhone — to the app store, where you can download and install the foursquare app. The login screen has also received the “touch” treatment.

Tips can be sorted by “popular” or “recent” just as they can on the desktop version. You can also browse through the multiple page of tips that users have left.

This is a good move by foursquare that will make their venue pages much easier to navigate for anyone using a mobile phone. Once the Facebook Places integration is complete, it will also help to differentiate foursquare against their competition.

What do you think of the new “touch” venue pages?

UPDATE: Further testing has shown that these new venue pages only appear on iPhones. They do not work on Android or Blackberry phones at this time.