If you are looking for a restaurant, a bar, a cafe, a museum, or whatever, there are plenty of ways you can do that on your phone. You can use Foursquare (a USV portfolio company), you can use Yelp, you can use Google or Apple maps, you can do a Google search, or you can stop someone on the street and ask them.
I prefer to use Foursquare because its recommendations are personalized for me based on all of my history with Foursquare over the past eight years. Many others tell me they get the best recommendations from Foursquare too, even if they haven’t been using the app for the past eight years.
But last week, Foursquare launched something that makes searching with their app even better. They now let you search their lists and get user and brand created lists by topic. These searches are geolocated so you always get lists based on where you are.
Here’s a search for sushi lists (in NYC because that’s where I am right now):
Here’s a search for pizza lists:
Here’s a search for museum lists:
If you have never seen a list in Foursquare, this is what they look like:
And if you click on the map icon when you are on a list, you get my all time favorite feature, the list map view:
I find searching for and using lists better than searching for a single venue because a list contains multiple options for that single thing you are looking for. Lists have context, lists have options, and lists are fun.
So the next time you are looking for something local, try using Foursquare and searching by lists. You go to the list tab (second one), and hit the search icon. I think you will find it to be a terrific experience.
