Foursquare Everywhere in Bing Maps

Here at Where 2.0, Blaise Aguera y Arcas of Microsoft (at right) – and the lead developer on Bing Maps – showed off Bing Maps’ Foursquare integration.

While still in the a limited release, “Foursquare Everywhere” does a nice job of showing off Foursquare check-ins, but what is probably more important to Foursquare especially, is that Bing really highlights Foursquare Tips (which users can leave about a location for other users). Tips has always kind of played second fiddle to check-ins and mayorships in the Foursquare universe, so getting Tips out front and center on Bing should open up usage of this feature.

According to the Bing blog, there is also a feature in Foursquare Everywhere that will zoom around and center on the map as people check-in in real time. Here’s an excerpt:

There’s a check box near the bottom of the application that is simply addicting. Check the box to “auto-center the map on new updates” and watch the map fly around the world as people check in everywhere! Very addicting to watch the animations bounce on the map as they load. If you’re not seeing data on the map, chances are you’re zoomed into an area where people aren’t playing foursquare so either move the map or zoom out. Within the stream you can click on locations to highlight (with a spin) on the map. If you click on one of the pieces of data pinned to the map you’ll get a popup with the name of the location which you can click to zoom down. You can also view the location on foursquare.com.