US Foursquare announced yesterday it launched localized versions of its social geolocation service in Bahasa Indonesian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Thai. The new versions have been made available through the company’s iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry applications as well as through its web interface.
The Russian press also reported rumors that Foursquare is considering hiring a country manager for Russia.
Foursquare’s traffic Russian performance has been relatively poor to date, but it is progressing slowly. According to AppAppeal, a website that uses Alexa traffic data to compare web applications, Foursquare is ranked 1265 on the list of Russia’s most popular websites – up from the 2110th position in Feb. 2011 – based on a combination of average daily visitors and page views. By comparison, Foursquare is ranked 497 in the US, 1,558 in India, and 228 in Mexico. 2.8% of Foursquare users come from Russia, and they generate 2.3% of the page views on Foursquare, compared to 2.3% and 1.7% respectively eight months ago.
In early 2011, Foursquare agreed with MTS, a leading Russian mobile operator and retailer, to offer Foursquare check-in points at 3,200 MTS outlets throughout Russia, beginning in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Other major US players that have launched a Russian version of their services earlier this year are LinkedIn and Twitter. eBay – which made its site available in the Russian language in 2010 – began offering local classifieds in spring, 2011.
