• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, June 21, 2011

Foursquare continues to scale its brand-friendly location-based social network. According to the LBS leader, it surpassed the 10 million-member mark this month. "One of the most amazing things about building Foursquare has been seeing a tool we designed for our friends turn into something now used by over 10,000,000 people," stated the New York start-up. "And as our community grows larger, we get to build things that start to fulfil our larger vision for the future."

The Los Angeles Times notes, however, "The maker of the ‘check-in' app wouldn't say just what those things were." When asked if he had any grand plans for Foursquare now that it's hit the 10 million mark, co-founder Dennis Crowley told TechCrunch: "Yes, keep making the product better.  We still got a long way to go  :)."

Since Foursquare's founding in March 2009, the company has recorded 4.7 million check-ins on Main Streets across the U.S.; 169 countries visited by U.S. users; 358 million check-ins outside the U.S.; sheck-ins at 225 weddings at city halls; and 1,602 birth announcements via hospital check-ins.

Meanwhile, Old Navy, Bank of America, 7-Eleven, Home Depot and Target are among the most popular businesses among active Foursquare users.

"Despite media buzz and investor excitement around services like foursquare, mobile check-in services remain a niche interest," writes FierceMobileContent.com, citing data issued last month by comScore. Only 16.7 million U.S. wireless subscribers checked in at local destinations via mobile device in March 2011 -- corresponding to 7.1% of the total nationwide mobile population, according to comScore.

That said, "Foursquare is working on becoming an actual business and, though it's still got some work to do, it's already gotten about 400,000 companies directly involved with managing their Foursquare profiles," Softpedia writes. "The real problem is converting all of these check-ins and all of the activity into money, something that many social and local Web start-ups are struggling to do."