As we noted a couple days ago, just because Facebook Places is out in the wild, Foursquare is not sitting around doing nothing. Aside from getting some space for employees in San Francisco, Foursquare has made another key hire — a director of marketing.
Jon Steinback is joining the location-based startup from Associated Content where he was Director of Product. Prior to that he had been at Google for a little over four years. At Google he did a range of things, first working on new AdWords features and then Google Video. Then he moved to London to run marketing across Europe for Google. His last year with the search giant, Steinback says he focused on policy issues, building out new privacy and child protection centers.
Steinback is the latest in a series of ex-Google employees now at Foursquare. Co-founder Dennis Crowley spent some time there after Google bought his previous startup, Dodgeball. His Dodgeball co-founder, Alex Rainert, was also at Google and is now with Foursquare as head of product. Harry Heymann, Foursquare’s engineering lead, spent five years at Google before making the move. Erin Gleason, who heads communications for Foursquare, came over a few months ago. And most recently, Siobhan Quinn, a product manager for Blogger made the jump to fill the same role at Foursquare.
In other words, Steinback should feel right at home. Though I’m not sure Google CEO Eric Schmidt will be pleased with all these defections.
In May, Associated Content was purchased by Yahoo, but Steinback says this opportunity was too good to pass up. He’ll get to return to New York, “where the tech scene is absolutely blowing up.“
“Talking with the Foursquare team reminds me of Google is 2004,” Steinback tells us. “Just so much energy and excitement.“
With Steinback’s hire, Foursquare is nearing 30 employees.
Foursquare is a geographical location based social network that incorporates gaming elements. Users share their location with friends by “checking in” via a smartphone app or by text message. Points are awarded for checking in at various venues. Users can connect their Foursquare accounts to their Twitter and Facebook accounts, which can update when a check in is registered. By checking in a certain number of times, or in different locations, users can collect virtual badges. In addition, users...
Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including: Gmail, Maps, YouTube, and Google+, the company’s extension into the social space. Most of its Web-based products are free, funded by Google’s highly integrated online advertising platforms AdWords and AdSense. Google promotes the idea that advertising should be highly targeted and relevant to users thus providing...
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