Cyber Access: Microsoft Invest $15 Million To Foursquare PLUS Licensing Deal

Sunday 9 February 2014

Microsoft seems to be in the midst of exciting times in spite of the not-so-good response it has received because of its decision to kill XP (albeit prolonging things, it seems). Then there is the new CEO, with Bill Gates even making a comeback. But that’s not all! While the company may have the image of a floundering beast, it seems that it is not without funds: Microsoft just gave Foursquare 15 million dollars on top of a licensing deal.

So what’s this money for?

Early this week, Foursquare announced that they have entered into a partnership with Microsoft, a partnership that has resulted in a $15 million dollar funding that involves Foursquare lending a hand to Bing (yes, there is life outside of Google). Specifically, Foursquare will be contributing in terms of location and context layers both for Windows 8 and Windows Phone.

That’s not a small amount of money, but what is more significant in this partnership is the amount of information that Microsoft will be getting from Foursquare. There aren’t too many details released about the location licensing deal, but that will surely cost Microsoft as well.

While the Foursquare has an API that other parties have access to, the newly sealed partnership will open the floodgates for Microsoft; that is, they will have a much deeper access to the data that Foursquare has; and seeing just how big Foursquare has become, that data is surely worth $15 million (and the other undisclosed amounts).

Of course, Foursquare users will now have to face the fact that your information – location included – will be scrutinized even more.

This move is obviously in the direction of contextual ads, predictive calculation, and proactive computing – all buzzwords that merely tell us that the big boys want to know what consumers are doing, where, and when, so that they can push products and services; with the data they gather, they hope to do so with a higher chance of actually grabbing our attention and making conversions.

And that’s not being judgemental – just stating a fact. After all, we know that’s where every major tech player wants to go in the future.