• ReadWriteWeb, Wednesday, August 3, 2011 11:47 AM

In an effort to ingratiate brands and publishers, Foursquare just launched a new version of Pages, which lets anyone sign up for a brand page. The pages will then push tips and check-ins to followers on Foursquare, as well as to Facebook and Twitter. "Foursquare lets users add new locations to the service, but, until today, there was no good way for most places to actively reach out to users, unless their owners waded through a daunting application process for a brand page," explains ReadWriteWeb.

Until now, Foursquare brand pages have been subject to manual approval by a large team. Now, all a brand page needs is a Twitter account for authentication. "In effect, Foursquare is introducing one-way following as an alternative to two-way friend requests for individual accounts," ReadWriteWeb adds.

"By simplifying the process for posting and following content about a place, Foursquare has a better chance of competing with richer content sites like Yelp." To succeed, Foursquare will rely on its social network to create and share its content.

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