Square believes it can trump Foursquare in the local recommendations game
Square collects a lot of store info by virtue of its payment business, so you'd think it would be great at recommending where to shop. And you may soon be right, according to the company's Ajit Varma. While he doesn't have a schedule, he tells The Verge that Square will eventually customize its directory to suggest hot or newly opened stores based on our spending habits. Varma even believes that his company could beat Foursquare in the local recommendations field, and it's easy to see why when Square knows that we're willing to buy, not just that we've entered a given store. Of course, this is all contingent on both a ubiquitous Square presence and consumerist intentions. Foursquare is entirely willing to point us to both free landmarks as well as stores without Square readers, so it's doubtful that the two services will ever completely overlap.
