Foursquare has launched a new tracking service that allows its users to travel back in time, not the fictional kind anyways, but at least it will allow users of the tracking service to view a visual history of their past check-ins.
The social media tool called Four Square Time Machine was launched June 13. It is an interactive map that makes use of colorful lines and glowing circles to help users recall where they have checked-in since they started using the social media platform.
"Zoom through time and space as you visualize all your check-ins, discover all the places you should head to next, and save and share pretty infographics of your stats," Foursquare introduced the Time Machine on its official blog.
Once Foursquare users enter the Time Machine, they can fetch their check-in history and have it auto-played before them. Wired noted that users can slow the hops from one point to the next by using the arrow keys.
The Foursquare Time Machine also presents statistics of the places users have frequented and suggests other places that users might be interested to visit. Foursquare users can compile the stats of their visits and create an infographic that can be easily shared on other social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.
The Time Machine will be very useful for heavy users of Foursquare since the visualization will be a real eye candy. It will give users an overview of their favorite places on weekends, distance traveled, number of check-ins, a ratio of how much beer one drinks compared to the beer they consumer, among other stats.
Meanwhile, the Time Machine is not just a data visualization tool but also a revenue channel for Foursquare. The new social media tool is dotted by Samsung Galaxy 4 branding that may lead one to think that this can just be another ad.
TechCrunch reported that Foursquare, more known for its mobile app, is also beefing up Foursquare.com and opening up the possibilities of attracting users to a platform where it can monetize the service better.
Pietro Zuco has uploaded a video of the Foursquare Time Machine on YouTube, which we shared below:
