Is Foursquare trying to become the mayor of Asia? It kinda looks like it. After introducing a special Lion City badge for Singapore users, Foursquare launched the Sakura Badge this past Friday evening for its Tokyo users.
All you have to do is to check-in at five of the 64 Tokyo spots on Foursquare that are listed for this Sakura badge. These are popular locations in the city including Shibuya, Harajuku, and Shinjuku.
Foursquare has made some amazing progress in Tokyo. According to its data last year, Shibuya and Shinjuku were ranked second and third respectively as the most checked-in train stations in the world.
If Foursquare’s intention is to engage more Asian users with more localized badges, my bet for the next few roll outs would be in Thailand and Indonesia where the location-based network is also popular, at least according to Oliver Woods’ data.
And what about China? Foursquare can forget about it for now as Jiepang continues to enjoy its dominance among Chinese users. Its competitor Digu had massive staff lay-offs and a change of direction in recent months as well. At that time when we broke the news, Digu’s co-founder and general manager John Huang explained that it’s too early to explore the LBS business model as he believes that the top priority should be on recruiting users. Digu has now pivoted to a photo-sharing service, and you can find out more about that on its website.