NBC partners with foursquare to map the 2012 campaign trail

NBC this morning launched a new site, NBCPolitics.com, that will be the home of their political coverage leading up to the 2012 election. As part of that, they also announced a new partnership with foursquare to help map the presidential campaign directly on the new site.

The “Campaign Check-ins” feature on NBCPolitics (coming in January) will highlight the campaign stops made by each Republican candidate as they visit different states in the run-up to each primary and will continue through the general election. It will also track the real-time check-ins of NBC’s “embedded” journalists with each campaign team.

“NBC News’ partnership with foursquare will allow our audiences to more fully engage with the 2012 campaign,” said Vivian Schiller, Chief Digital Officer at NBC News. “By leveraging foursquare’s location-based technology, users will be able to go follow candidates and experience NBC’s election coverage in an innovative and unprecedented way.”

Each campaign will be able to use a customized widget to embed the check-in details on their own sites.

“Understanding where candidates go on the campaign trail and why they go there is a fascinating story that we wanted to share with consumers,” said Paige West, Creative Director, msnbc.com. “Visually mapping the campaigns’ activities as we progress through each state’s nominating contest and the general election is the best possible way to bring that story to life. Without foursquare, it wouldn’t be feasible for us to produce this type of content.”

The release announcing the partnership also mentions that NBC News will offer political badges beginning in 2012, but there are no further details on what those will entail.

This should prove to be a valuable media partnership to help expose foursquare to a new audience. NBC has already highlighted foursquare on the Today Show and in promotional videos for the site.

As more and more candidates continue to join foursquare, it’s clear that it’s becoming another important tool in their social-networking arsenals. NBC’s unique way of visualizing the information they’re sharing will bring a whole new perspective to the campaign, taking it from following a single candidate to seeing how the entire campaign unfolds across all the candidates and the journalists who are covering them.