Singapore deal for Foursquare

Location-based service (LBS) provider Foursquare is set to enjoy a boost of publicity in the region after it made a partnership with Refinery Media, based in Singapore.

The media house said in a statement it plans to tie in the LBS to Refinery's upcoming season of reality show, Supermodelme.

The show will use Foursquare to reach out to fans by flagging destinations with tips and to-dos set by celebrity judges and model contestants on the show. Refinery said it also expects the partnership to raise its advertisers' brand visibility whenever users check in at nearby locations, by displaying alerts from these sponsors.

The show will also bring additional badges to the game element of Foursquare, wherein users obtain badges by fulfilling parameters set out by Foursquare. This will be available to users in Singapore, with neighboring countries still pending, Refinery said.

This announcement follows Yahoo's acquisition last week of Indonesian LBS property similar to Foursquare, called Koprol. According to reports, Yahoo was also interested in buying Foursquare and was willing to pay US$125 million for the year-old startup.

It bought Koprol for an undisclosed sum and Yahoo is expected to roll out the platform to other parts of the world.

Since Foursquare's launch in March last year, the company has reported that it now has a base of about a million users. It also tweeted last week that 10 people voluntarily update Foursquare with their location data every second.

In January this year, it started expanding beyond its initial base within the United States and some cities in Europe, and opened up its service to the rest of the world. This allowed users to check into their local cities and start adding points of interest to Foursquare's database.

The LBS opportunity was estimated in March to be worth US$560 million this year and will triple to US$1.8 billion in 2015. A Mobile Marketing Association executive said in a previous report that foreign players such as Foursquare should tie up with local parties such as sponsors and operators to drive user adoption in the region.