The Magazine

Foursquare now shares a lot more with Facebook

21

By on June 11th, 2012

With the new version released last week, foursquare now shares a lot more information with Facebook. In addition to the old check-ins, mayorships and badges, foursquare now shares your lists, tips, saves and likes — using a single one-size-fits-all connection.

The new additions — if enabled — appear on your Facebook timeline and in friends’ news feeds as you add them, much like the Pinterest or 500 px apps. Some actions, such as likes, are aggregated together in a single box, while tips appear individually.

Users are given an option to enable these new features the first time they run foursquare 5.0 (or they can be activated from foursquare’s settings on the website or in the app). A single option controls everything — including badges, mayorships, tips, likes, etc. — so there’s no way to turn some off and leave others on.

If you’re active on foursquare, this could easily lead to oversharing with your friends. I forgot about the new option and visited my Facebook timeline to find a string of five foursquare tips in a row that were posted there. It added a lot of unnecessary clutter to my timeline and could have annoyed my friends. (Note: these were created from the website; the apps seem to still honor your preferences for individual tips)

The way foursquare handles check-ins pushed to Facebook has also changed. There’s (thankfully) no longer an option that defaults to sharing with Facebook (or Twitter), so users will need to check the Facebook or Twitter boxes for each individual check-in. This should reduce the number of people who leave that turned on and annoy their friends and followers. UPDATE: I stand corrected. When you choose to share with Facebook or Twitter, it stays on until you turn it off.

These new sharing “options” are good for foursquare since they help to introduce more Facebook users to foursquare’s features, but I’d really like to see more fine-grained control of what’s shared so I don’t fill Facebook with things that were better left in the context of foursquare.

What do you think of the changes?

  • http://twitter.com/GeekAaron Aaron

    I discovered this weekend that when I selected to post one of my check-ins to Twitter, that option remained selected for subsequent check-ins until I deselected it.

    • Andrew

      I noticed this for Facebook as well. I shared several check-ins without intending to, after intentionally sharing 1 check-in to facebook.

      • Chris Thompson

        Odd. Mine seem to turn off every time.

      • Mike

        yeah, I had the same thing happen as Aaron.

  • http://www.benfortney.com Ben Fortney

    >> “there’s no way to turn some off and leave others on.”

    You can hide certain aspects from appearing on the FB timeline though. I turned off the badges feature last night. It still tallies in the FB app but doesn’t broadcast to all my “friends.”

    • http://www.benfortney.com Ben Fortney

      Didn’t finish my thought. Using the FB timeline controls you have the option to “Hide all saves” or “Hides all badges.” Yes, I think it would be better to control this from 4sq, but there is a solution.

      • Chris Thompson

        That’s a good point that I hadn’t thought of. I haven’t found a way to hide tips, though.

      • http://www.benfortney.com Ben Fortney

        Oddly, I created a tip last night via the 4sq website and there’s no mention on FB anywhere of that.

        If you go into the actual 4sq/FB App and click the “Activity Log” button it looks like you can control all the publishing options.

      • Chris Thompson

        You can control the publishing options — but only after the fact.

  • http://www.c0wb0yz.com c0wb0yz

    Great post, great point. This one-size-fits-all option is very frustrating. All or nothing, seriously ? I’m sure my friends could be interested in my tips, but they could not care less about my mayorships. It’s 2012, for check-in’s sake, we should be able to share precisely what we want to share.

    • Two K

      I agree.
      If I want to save a venue (that needs editing) to a list, I want to be able to NOT share my action with all of my 4sq friends.

      • http://www.almediapage.info/ Tom Servo

        Ditto, and glad to know I’m not the only SU using lists as a reminder to fix things. :)

  • paulie

    I really wish they’d bring back the photo sharing functionality to Facebook. When I check in on foursquare and include a photo and share it with Facebook, it used to also post the photo in a Facebook photo gallery named “foursquare” and post the photo prominently in my timeline. But not any more. This was my favorite part of sharing with Facebook, and I really hope they bring it back soon.

    • Chris Thompson

      It doesn’t use the foursquare gallery any more, but the photos do post to Facebook.

      • paulie

        My Foursquare photos no longer make it to Facebook. My account is linked, and all of my check-ins and badges appear in my timeline, but whenever I check-in to a venue via the Foursquare app and attach a photo, only the map w/ venue icon appears in my timeline. The attached photo doesn’t appear in my timeline, or anywhere on Facebook for that matter. Is this not proper integration behavior? Are other users having a different experience? (I’m using the Android app, BTW.)

      • http://www.almediapage.info/ Tom Servo

        Paulie, I just checked and I’m still getting photos so it might be a glitch with your account or something. Then again nothing’s posted to my account for the last 22 hours – turns out I turned off Facebook sharing for one checkin and it never turned back on, INCLUDING checkins I did with Simple Checkin. Oops! I was wondering why I wasn’t getting any mayor bonuses!

  • http://jeffsettin.tumblr.com Jeff Lombardo

    I read in the article that it updates old Foursquare check-ins to Facebook Maps? I would love to know how or if it’s really possible. I’m almost at 1,000 check-ins and travel Internationally. I would like to see my Facebook Maps light up with all my Foursquare check-ins.

    • http://twitter.com/GeekAaron Aaron

      I don’t know if you can get old check-ins to show up on the Facebook map. Mine only shows check-ins starting earlier this month.

  • WalrusGooner

    Looks like one other function disappeared with this upgrade: when you check in to an event at a venue on foursquare, that event no longer cross-posts to Facebook, only the venue check-in appears. Kind of disappointing when you want to tell your Facebook friends which movie you’re seeing.

  • Gizmoh

    I didn’t know and since I created a new list with 46items; posted a tip on each item; deleted it and created it again including the picture I needed, I now have around 100 posts on my timeline. :) lol

    I agree it should be more fine-tuned settings.

  • Gizmoh

    Found a way to post 4sq check-ins to facebook, but not when I place tips, likes, etc.

    a.) ‘Apps Settings’ on Facebook to allow all (post on your behalf, Access your data, checkins)
    b.) ‘Sharing with other networks’ on Foursquare: connect Facebook but disable “Share my likes, … badges on my timeline.

    You’ll still be able to share a checking with Facebook or to share it after you see you won a badge or majorship. But your timeline will stay clear from all the list-modifications, likes, tips, etc

    PS: Reply if this helped

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