Foursquare presents their Best of 2012
Each year it seems like newspapers, magazines and websites fall all over themselves to create a list of the best places in their respective cities. Every single one of them is subjective, based on what an editor or readers think are the best places in town. They’re often prone to bribery (in the form of ad money) and personal prejudices that always seem to make sure a few less-worthy places make the list in place of the true “best of the best.”
With more than three billion check-ins, Foursquare knows where people are actually going, thus making them perhaps the best authority for an unbiased list of best places in a city. To that end, they’ve now created a series of “Best of Foursquare” lists for 30 American cities that highlight the best bars, pizza joints and more in each city.
Each list features the top venues in a particular city from a certain category. The 15-20 categories selected for each city vary. Every city features some of the the staples like “Best Pizza” or “Best Bar,” but they also created a few lists unique to that city’s persona. New Orleans, for example, offers a list of the “Best Jazz Clubs,” while Kansas City has a list of the “Best BBQ Joints.”
We’ve built a full list of the lists to make it easy to find the ones for your city (or a city you’re visiting!). Click the city’s name in the list below to see its available lists.
Interestingly, these lists appear just days after Charlie O’Donnell suggested Foursquare “get back to its roots” by turning list completion into its own game. Curated “Best of” lists certainly add significantly to the number of quality lists on Foursquare that would be fun for users to complete.
These lists also serve to highlight some of the interesting data that can be gleaned from all these check-ins Foursquare has collected. Its especially important at a time when Foursquare needs to prove their value to investors and the tech community at large.
What do you think of the lists? What cities do you wish were included?
