Foursquare Unveils New "Swarm" App

Foursquare’s new app called Swarm became available for download on Thursday on iOS and Android. The company recently announced that it would be splitting into two separate mobile applications.

Swarm will be Foursquare’s location-sharing app, arguably what the company is best known for. Users will be able to share their whereabouts with friends through Swarm.

The main Foursquare app will evolve into a Yelp-like (NYSE:YELP) competitor, which has seen its stock go up 78% in the past year.  It will be used for restaurant and bar reviews and will relaunch this summer.

Foursquare is discontinuing mayorships in its regular app, which was previously awarded to a venue’s most frequent visitor. Swarm will have mayors, but the competition will be amongst friend groups, rather than the general population.

“Mayors were great when Foursquare was small and you were competing against your friends to rule the neighborhood coffee shop, but as more people signed up, earning a mayor crown became impossible,” said the company statement.

Swarm will also have additional features. Users will be able to make plans with their friends, by asking questions such as “who wants to grab sushi later?”

Neighborhood sharing will also allow Swarm users to share a more general location, rather than a specific restaurant or bar. This appears to be an attempt to attract users with privacy concerns.

Founded in 2009, Foursquare has almost 50 million users on its original app. The startup is venture backed, having raised $162 million from a long list of investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures and Microsoft (NASDQ:MSFT).