Foursquare place data available globally
By: Ali Anthes
We just launched millions of new places in our search, from Foursquare. Foursquare’s data comes from over 13 billion first-party check-ins and 25 million users who have opted-in to always-on location sharing. The Foursquare database includes over 105 million points of interest and contains valuable venue information, from addresses and opening hours to ratings and need-to-know tips.
We clean, curate, and refresh the data every month so users are always getting up-to-date places. This new data adds hundreds of new search categories; School and Hotel are no longer descriptive enough for the way people explore the world. People want to find motels, hotels, hostels, B+Bs, vacation rentals, resorts. Driving schools, circus schools, adult education schools, magic schools, flight schools. These are just a some of the categories we’ve loaded from Foursquare.
Place data is a critical layer to search and geocoding, which power the applications from over 1 million registered developers and 400 million monthly active users. These apps let you watch your groceries being delivered, order lunch to your office, show you the route your chihuahua walked, take online dating connections offline to the real world. Location search and geocoding underpin all of these experiences, and a rich dataset is critical to a successful search experience.
Mapbox customer TripScout, a curated travel guide app, differentiates themselves from their competitors by finding off-the-beaten-path spots and neighborhood gems to help travelers feel like natives in a destination. Users can search and find all of the niche locations in the TripScout app.
“It’s imperative to our business that our maps contain accurate point-of-interest info and have great coverage across all the cities where we offer guides. Mapbox’s POI coverage is accurate and up-to-date, especially in cities, so we know that our users will be able to find our curated recommendations on the map, even for the most niche of spots.”
~ Konrad, CEO, TripScout
Adobe Lightroom CC uses our Geocoding API to add location information to every photo taken with a phone or GPS-enabled camera. The process happens automatically, in the background, so you can import and edit your photos while Adobe uses our maps and Geocoding API to figure out the name of the place and generate a thumbnail of the place in the right location. Using the permanent endpoint of our Geocoding API, Adobe tags the images with the location information and stores that data as part of each photo’s metadata. With each photo tagged, you can then use Lightroom to search across all your images for photos from a location:
In the real estate industry, users expect to see more than a listing on a map. Apartment List is using Mapbox Search to add walk scores and transit scores to every listing and to show prospective renters nearby points of interest, such as restaurants, grocery stores, gyms, and schools.
“We’re excited to partner with Mapbox as their maps offer deep point-of-interest coverage across all the categories that our renters care about. We can also build in Mapbox’s real-time routing to help our users navigate around neighborhoods to experience the surrounding streets for themselves before they commit to an apartment.”
~ Kristján Pétursson, Director of Engineering, Apartment List
Search is core to how users interact with and move in the world around them. Take a look at how more companies are using Mapbox Search and hit us up to chat about implementing it into your app.
Millions of places from billions of check-ins on Foursquare added to Mapbox Search was originally published in Points of interest on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.