Ideas for Foursquare

I have a list of ideas for Foursquare:

One, they should open source their Android app, so people can improve it.

Two, when a mobile app checks in, it should also send the mac of the wifi it's connected to, the mac & signal strengths of all the other wifi's it sees, the cellphone tower id the phone is connected to, the signal strengths of all the other towers it sees.

Three, the app should be able to search for locations based on that data. Why wait for a GPS lock and/or a couple of round trips trying to turn that information into a latlon and THEN search for locations near that latlon. Cut out the middleman data.

Four, the app should keep a local cache associating wifis & tower ids to checkin locations. When my phone can see the local cafe's wifi access point blazing away, it should be able to instantly display the location I checked into the last time it saw that AP, without having to wait for a couple of network round trips and searches from the 4sq servers.

Five, the Android app should integrate with the Map app just like Google Latitude does. When I bring up Maps, there should be an overlay named 4sq that has pinpoints for all my friend's checkins in the last couple of hours.

Six, they should start contributing their mapping information to OSM. Or at least give the user the option to click a couple of checkboxes "Do you want to contribute your information to OSM?"

Seven, they need to work with organizations and with serious crowdsource volunteers better. For example, make it easy for an airport authority, a university, a mall, a public transit org, etc to create the canonical entries for airport gates and terminals and shops, for buildings and classrooms, for mall locations and shops, for bus and transit stops.