We've known for quite some time that the integration of location data is going to be a major component of Google Glass and other wearable technology.
A video for Project Glass that Google released more than a year ago previewed the type of integration Google had in mind: A person approaches a New York City subway only to find, via Glass, that train service has been suspended.
Foursquare, the 4-year-old location-based app known best for check-ins and mayorships, could become a provider of data that powers wearables like Google Glass.
At the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York on Monday, Foursquare co-founder and CEO Dennis Crowley suggested that his company wanted to move beyond smartphones into the next generation of hardware.
"There's all this value you can tease out of Foursquare, but in order to do it you have to take your phone out of your pocket and you have to continue to go into Foursquare and ask Foursquare a question," he said. "But we're at the point now where we can start to anticipate the things that people will be interested in before they even think about asking Foursquare for that.
"Whether that means we're buzzing the phone in your pocket, whether that means that someday some wearable device you have displaying Foursquare data ... there's lots of ways to start spreading this data around."
Crowley, who appeared to be sporting several pieces of wearable tech himself (what looked like a blue Jawbone UP as well as a Nike+ Fuelband on his right wrist) said that he'd recently attended a mobile conference in Barcelona and was excited about the "non-phone gadgets" -- likely including watches, glasses and wristbands -- that are being developed and could be integrated with the Foursquare API.
"We pay a lot of attention to the folks that are inventing the next generation of hardware," Crowley said, denying repeatedly that his company is in the business of developing hardware.
Foursquare is already integrated with many third-party apps, like Instagram, Path and Uber, so moving to integrate it into new technologies is certainly logical.
After an initial burst of growth, Foursquare is not, in the words of Crowley, "the shiny new thing anymore." Bloomberg BusinessWeeks's Sarah Frier relayed a stark report earlier this month from the research firm PrivCo that said the company wouldn't exist in a year.
Foursquare says that it has more than 30 million users worldwide, but it's unclear how many of those accounts are actually active; Crowley declined to disclose that number to AllThingsD's Peter Kafka last month, and the company did not return a request for comment from The Huffington Post.
The company, which is valued at $600 million, brought in only $2 million in revenue last year, according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
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