# Back-to-School 2026: How to Win the 75% of Shoppers Willing to Switch Brands This Season The “old retail playbook” is officially obsolete. As we head into the 2026 back-to-school season, AI-driven shopping habits and shifting economic priorities have fundamentally rewritten the consumer journey. To win this year, retailers must move beyond broad-reach digital tactics and anchor their strategies in the precision of real-world behavior. Location data remains the most accurate … ## [Introducing the new FSQ Place Match API](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/data/introducing-the-new-fsq-place-match-api/) December 4, 2025 We are excited to announce the public beta launch of Foursquare’s Batch Place Match API, a collection of endpoints that… ## [Evolving FSQ Open Source Places](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/data/evolving-fsq-open-source-places/) October 8, 2025 In November 2024, we took a bold step in open-sourcing our Places dataset with a hypothesis that a community driven… ## [Foursquare Brings Enterprise-Grade Spatial Analytics to Your Browser with Kepler.gl 3.1](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/products/foursquare-brings-enterprise-grade-spatial-analytics-to-your-browser-with-kepler-gl-3-1/) January 29, 2025 Since its launch, Kepler.gl has transformed how data scientists extract insights from location data, pioneering immersive visualization and interactive analysis… ## [Welcoming Reprompt as the First LLM-based Placemaker Agent on Foursquare’s Places Engine](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/products/welcoming-reprompt-as-the-first-llm-based-placemaker-agent-on-foursquares-places-engine/) January 23, 2025 Today marks a pivotal milestone in our journey towards building the most comprehensive and accurate dataset of real-world places: Reprompt… ## [Foursquare Open Source Places: A new foundational dataset for the geospatial community](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/products/foursquare-open-source-places-a-new-foundational-dataset-for-the-geospatial-community/) November 19, 2024 At each stage of rapid technology expansion and adoption, one can identify core open source software that led to significant… ## [FAQ: The Relationship Between GeoAI, GIS, Generative AI, & Data Analytics](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/leadership/faq-the-relationship-between-geoai-gis-generative-ai-data-analytics/) September 17, 2024 In the complicated world of geospatial data, analytics, and artificial intelligence, you may be wondering… how do I keep up?… ## [How Retailers Are Elevating Strategies with GeoAI & Emerging Technologies](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/leadership/how-retailers-are-elevating-strategies-with-geoai-emerging-technologies/) August 22, 2024 GeoAI…machine learning…artificial intelligence—these terms have become more than just buzzwords in recent years; they represent a transformative shift in how… ## [Bring Your Own Data: why the “BYOD” approach is the next frontier of location intelligence](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/data/bring-your-own-data-why-the-byod-approach-is-the-next-frontier-of-location-intelligence/) July 23, 2024 While the ever-evolving needs of business continue to change, one key aspect of the future remains steadfast: high–quality data will… ## [Using Foursquare’s Places API to Enhance User Experience](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/use-cases/using-foursquares-places-api-to-enhance-user-experience/) April 11, 2024 The digital age has changed the way we find information. Instead of flipping through the Yellow Pages, users turn to… ## [Building More Contextualized App Experiences with Location-based SDKs](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/products/building-more-contextualized-app-experience-with-location-based-sdks/) March 28, 2024 Location is a key consideration for app developers who want to provide a better experience for users. Location-based SDKs are… ## [Personalization APIs 101](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/products/personalization-apis-101/) March 14, 2024 Personalization is a key consideration for brands to maintain a competitive advantage. It provides tailored recommendations and customized messaging to… ## [Foursquare Places API named Best Innovation in Mobile & Device Development](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/news/foursquare-places-api-named-best-innovation-in-mobile-device-development/) February 21, 2024 Foursquare is excited to share that Places API has been named the 2024 Best Innovation in Mobile & Device Development… ## [Technical Guide to Foursquare Places (Part 2): How does Foursquare Get Location Data Right?](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/products/technical-guide-to-foursquare-places-part-2-how-does-foursquare-get-location-data-right/) February 13, 2024 Location data is hard to get right. In Part 1 of this Technical Guide, we outlined the importance of high… ## [Technical Guide to Foursquare Places (Part 1): Empowering Organizations with Points of Interest Data](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/products/technical-guide-to-foursquare-places-part-1-empowering-organizations-with-points-of-interest-data/) February 1, 2024 In today’s data-driven business landscape, location intelligence plays a pivotal role in enabling organizations to gain competitive advantage and make… ## [The Extreme Weather of 2023, Visualized](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/the-extreme-weather-of-2023-visualized/) November 9, 2023 By March, Los Angeles recorded more than double Seattle’s rainfall. In June, air quality was historically bad due to Canadian… ## [Pioneering Efficiency: A Leader’s Guide to Data Science Efficiency](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/leadership/pioneering-efficiency-a-leaders-guide-to-data-science-efficiency/) October 3, 2023 Like many other sectors, the tech industry has been heavily affected by the current state of the economy. Major tech… ## [FSQ Measures Incremental Visits Among New Customers For Papa Murphy’s](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/introducing-directories-for-places-api/) September 8, 2023 Papa Murphy’s, a quick serve restaurant (QSR), wanted to drive incremental visits and reach new customers through media campaigns. Their… ## [FSQ Places Engine: combining advanced GeoAI technology with human verification for high quality POI data](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/fsq-places-engine-combining-advanced-ai-technology-with-human-verification-for-high-quality-poi-data/) August 8, 2023 The comprehensive, industry-leading approach to building accurate and reliable Places data For years, Foursquare has been at the forefront of… ## [From Sky to Street: Harnessing Fleet Visualization for Aviation and Rideshare](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/use-cases/from-sky-to-street-harnessing-fleet-visualization-for-aviation-and-rideshare/) July 25, 2023 Whether on land or in the air, fleet visualization is the practice of studying and replaying the movement patterns of… ## [WMS support expands Foursquare’s open geospatial footprint](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/wms-support-expands-foursquares-open-geospatial-footprint/) June 15, 2023 Foursquare recently joined the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) to support the definition and implementation of new open file formats for… ## [Uncovering the Value of Raster Data Applications for Environmental Industries](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/use-cases/uncovering-the-value-of-raster-data-applications-for-environmental-industries/) June 8, 2023 When you’re involved in agriculture, environmental studies, or land-use industries, the ability to access and analyze multiple layers of surface… ## [Engineering levels and progression](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/engineering-levels-and-progression/) May 4, 2023 Purpose of this document: This is a framework to think about engineer leveling and progression. It’s useful for employees to… ## [Solving Location-Based Problems with Suitability Analysis](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/use-cases/solving-location-based-problems-with-suitability-analysis/) April 27, 2023 Suitability Analysis – the process of evaluating the suitability of an area for a particular use or purpose – is… ## [How Foursquare and AWS are modernizing geospatial analysis and visualization](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/how-foursquare-and-aws-are-modernizing-geospatial-analysis-and-visualization/) April 4, 2023 For the past few years, Foursquare and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have been helping businesses usher in a new era… ## [Delivering Data at the Speed of Business](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/delivering-data-at-the-speed-of-business/) March 23, 2023 At Foursquare, we are committed to delivering geospatial data to our customers via their preferred methods, formats, and environments, all… ## [Maximize Your POI Data Insights with Foursquare Places Bulk Harmonization](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/capabilities/maximize-your-poi-data-insights-with-foursquare-places-bulk-harmonization/) March 16, 2023 Harmonization Have you ever sat through the painstaking process of trying to join two geospatial data sets? Perhaps you ran… ## [From Fuzzy Joins to Hexagonal Clarity: Happy Anniversary Hex Tiles](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/happy-anniversary-hex-tiles/) March 9, 2023 To celebrate one year since the launch of Hex Tiles, Foursquare takes a look at how the innovative technology solves… ## [Building a POI Search Using Mapbox and Foursquare Places Search on iOS](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/building-a-poi-search-using-mapbox-and-foursquare-places-search-on-ios/) March 7, 2023 As anyone who engages in geospatial analysis knows, studying a single location on a map can quickly turn into exploring… ## [Create Audience Segments Using K-Means Clustering in Python](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/create-audience-segments-using-k-means-clustering-in-python/) March 1, 2023 Segmentation is a crucial aspect of modern marketing, allowing companies to divide their audience into meaningful groups based on common… ## [Movement SDK: The Future of Location Intelligence](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/leadership/movement-sdk-the-future-of-location-intelligence/) January 31, 2023 To better reflect the role this product plays for developers and app users around the world, we are reintroducing Pilgrim… ## [Programmatically Harmonize Your Data via the Places API](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/programmatically-harmonize-your-data-via-the-places-api/) January 17, 2023 Making decisions based on incomplete or outdated POI data can be costly; especially in today’s competitive digital environment, where contextualized… ## [Digitizing real world POIs with Foursquare Places](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/digitizing-real-world-pois-with-foursquare-places/) January 5, 2023 Discovering real world places and keeping their information up-to-date is a challenging problem, due to their ever changing nature. In… ## [Foursquare joins Open Geospatial Consortium](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/foursquare-joins-open-geospatial-consortium/) December 21, 2022 As a Technical Member, Foursquare will help advance the development of best practices in data quality, data privacy, and data… ## [Unlocking the Power of Places with Foursquare’s Geo-Contextual Experience Hackathon](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/unlocking-the-power-of-places-with-foursquares-geo-contextual-experience-hackathon/) December 14, 2022 Better points-of-interest (POI) data means better apps and user experiences. Foursquare’s Places API offers flexible access to the largest user-generated… ## [All things EV, from site selection to mapping, apps, and more](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/all-things-ev-from-site-selection-to-mapping-apps-and-more/) November 30, 2022 With the US EV market expected to grow to nearly 137B by 2028, up from 28B in 2021, more companies… ## [The Engineer’s Dilemma: Building Teams That Build for Customers](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/the-engineers-dilemma-building-teams-that-build-for-customers/) October 6, 2022 The pressure on engineering executives can feel astronomical. On the one hand, the continued profitability of companies large and small… ## [Behind the Scenes of our Data Science Hackathon](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/behind-the-scenes-of-our-data-science-hackathon/) September 30, 2022 This summer, Foursquare hosted its first-ever data science hackathon on Kaggle. Participants were challenged to predict which POI updates represented the… ## [Finding The Right (POI) Match](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/finding-the-right-poi-match/) September 27, 2022 Getting point of interest (POI) data right is hard. In order to maintain the utmost accuracy in our Places dataset, we tackle… ## [A Closer Look at Hex Tiles: How it’s Changing Geospatial Analysis](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/a-closer-look-at-hex-tiles-how-its-changing-geospatial-analysis/) September 26, 2022 Foursquare’s Senior Director of Engineering Shan He was recently featured on the Mapscaping Podcast to discuss all things Hex Tiles.… ## [How to Build a Local Search Map Using Foursquare Places API](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/how-to-build-a-local-search-map-using-foursquare-places-api/) September 22, 2022 Building a local search map can be easier than you think. We’ll be walking through how to do so by… ## [Foursquare Places API Adds Telephone Search Capability](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/foursquare-places-api-adds-telephone-search-capability/) September 15, 2022 Foursquare’s Places API has been enhanced to detect phone number queries and return points of interest (POIs) associated with that number. Better… ## [Top Tips for Data Integration](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/top-tips-for-data-integration/) September 7, 2022 As any data scientist will tell you, the combination of increasingly large data sets and the varied data types have… ## [Introducing Movement Journeys: Greater Business Insights Based on Customers’ ETA](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/news/introducing-movement-journeys-greater-business-insights-based-on-customers-eta/) August 31, 2022 Monitor arrival time to physical locations to appropriately optimize resources and deliver an improved customer experience. Journeys is a new… ## [Using OpenStreetMap in Hex Tiles](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/using-openstreetmap-in-hex-tiles/) August 30, 2022 OpenStreetMap (OSM) is an open, community-maintained base map of the world. It includes the outlines of countries, locations of cities, important… ## [Introducing H3 Version 4.0.0](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/introducing-h3-version-4-0-0/) August 23, 2022 Global population mapped at H3 resolution 8 by Kontur Today marks the release of version 4.0.0 of the H3 hexagonal grid system. With this… ## [Going behind the scenes of Foursquare’s Places API](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/going-behind-the-scenes-of-foursquares-places-api/) June 14, 2022 Foursquare’s Places API continues to provide businesses with powerful POI search results and help deliver personalized data-driven user experiences. Just… ## [Hex Tiles: Building a new data tiling system with H3](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/hex-tiles-building-a-new-data-tiling-system-with-h3/) May 23, 2022 At Foursquare, our goal is to make industrial-grade geospatial data and analysis accessible to a broad audience. This… ## [Highlights From Our Latest Hackathon](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/highlights-from-our-latest-hackathon/) March 28, 2022 Here at Foursquare, we regularly host hackathons amongst our product and engineering teams to foster innovation, provide a change of… ## [ANDROID 12: How developers can adjust to new features and support data privacy](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/android-12-how-developers-can-adjust-to-new-features-and-support-data/) November 2, 2021 Respect for consumer data privacy is a core principle at Foursquare – thus, all of our products are designed and… ## [iOS 14: Foursquare mobile engineering – take 1](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/ios-14-foursquare-mobile-engineering-take-1/) September 9, 2020 As an engineer working on the Pilgrim SDK, I help our partners enable unique location use cases, while maintaining the… ## [New privacy controls, permissions, and debug logging in Pilgrim SDK](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/new-privacy-controls-permissions-and-debug-loggi/) July 28, 2020 We’ve introduced a few new features for both iOS and Android to support privacy and make it easier to troubleshoot.… ## [How Foursquare data science balances practicality and rigor](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/how-foursquare-data-science-balances-practicality/) February 5, 2020 When building quantitative systems that drive commercial value, pragmatism and innovation are not in conflict with one another. Foursquare is… ## [Why you need a phone’s eye view of the world | developer week keynote](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/why-you-need-a-phones-eye-view-of-the-world-dev/) July 28, 2019 On June 20, 2019, Foursquare previewed the access to Pilgrim SDK Free Tier in a keynote presentation at DeveloperWeek in… ## [Foursquare’s new approach to hiring top talent](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/foursquares-new-approach-to-hiring-top-talent/) July 18, 2019 The Tech Talent Pipeline (TTP) sat down with several members of our team, including Ben Ludman, Engineering Director, Clifton Jadoo,… ## [How our intern led Pants’ migration to Python 3](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/how-our-intern-led-pants-migration-to-python-3/) April 18, 2019 While the build tool Pants has supported building and testing Python 3 code for a long time, until today, Pants… ## [Good engineers can become good leaders](https://foursquare.com/resources/blog/developer/good-engineers-can-become-good-leaders/) February 12, 2019 When an engineer in the tech industry experiences career success and demonstrates significant value, a common question one asks themself…