Foursquare partners with LivingSocial, Gilt Groupe for daily deals

Foursquare will team with partners including LivingSocial and Gilt Groupe to offer users location-targeted daily coupon offers, heralding the mobile social network's most significant step yet toward translating consumer buzz into a viable revenue model.

Foursquare users check in via mobile device at local businesses and events--beginning Tuesday, the startup will leverage its location-tracking capabilities and wealth of customer data to offer deals from LivingSocial, Gilt Groupe's Gilt City subsidiary, AT&T (NYSE:T) Interactive, BuyWithMe and Zozi. Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley tells The Wall Street Journal that the firm's deep insight into user behaviors will help better target offers and generate a higher conversation rate: "We are trying to see if our targeting works and how users will react," he said. "The deals haven't been heavily targeted with some of these providers."

In May, reports indicated foursquare was in negotiations with social commerce giant Groupon to forge a similar mobile deals partnership. The Wall Street Journal states those talks are still ongoing.

Last month, foursquare topped 10 million users worldwide, with check-ins at local venues now surpassing 3 million each day. Days later, the startup completed a new $50 million funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with contributions from existing investors O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures and Union Square Ventures as well as new investor, Spark Capital. Insiders say foursquare is now valued at $600 million.

Despite media buzz and investor excitement around services like foursquare, mobile check-in services remain a niche interest according to data issued in May by digital research firm comScore. Only 16.7 million U.S. wireless subscribers checked in at local destinations via mobile device in March 2011, corresponding to 7.1 percent of the total nationwide mobile population, comScore reports. Smartphone users exhibit a far greater interest in mobile check-in tools: 12.7 million U.S. smartphone users checked in at nearby merchants, bars and venues in March, translating to 17.6 percent of the national smartphone population and 76.3 percent of all check-in app users.

For more:
- read this Wall Street Journal article

Related articles:
Foursquare moves beyond check-ins with Android notifications
Foursquare raises $50 million to build out merchant platform
Foursquare surges past 10M user milestone
ComScore: Just 7% of subscribers access mobile check-in services
Foursquare seeking $500M valuation