Hypertrending: Foursquare’s real-time view of all the cool places
Live from Austin
By: Eric Gundersen
The coolest launch at SXSW is Foursquare’s Hypertrending, a real-time view of what places are trending. Here is a live view of what is happening now in Austin. The feature maps where people are in the city and what places are popular. The Top 100 list view ranks popular places and events which are updated based on the number of people hanging out in those venues.
All data is anonymized and aggregated, so Hypertrending reveals what places are cool but doesn’t reveal or track the individuals in the panel. It only shows phones stopped at specific places, not their movements between them and Foursquare even filtered out sensitive places like home or apartments, religious centers, divorce lawyers offices and more.
Dennis Crowley has a great post on the importance of location data and explains why they’re revealing a demo of Hypertrending:
“Location data is some of the most sensitive data there is. And we’re aware that Hypertrending walks a fine line between being “creepy” and “cool” […] We are limiting access to it because *we know* it’s provocative. It’s also our belief that before something like our Hypertrending demo changes the game, we should try to give everyone a chance to get their head around the rules. So we are looking to get your thoughts and feedback on Hypertrending as it relates to the larger conversation around the need for transparency, thoughtful leadership, and ethical behavior from technology companies.”
I love how Foursquare is bringing the location privacy conversation directly to users and asking for their input. The team has a long history in being super transparent and leading the conversation of ethics in location tech.
