Foursquare Day: Bloomberg Makes it a New York Thing

Foursquare's cofounders have been featured in Gap ads, in Vogue and countless other stories — but now they've checked into the big time.

Foursquare has unlocked the key to New York City. For a mobile brand built on designating its power users as "mayors," today's visit by an actual mayor, of their hometown no less, is a big coup for the social brand.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg dropped by the Big Apple-based startup today to hand-deliver his proclamation that April 16th is hereby officially recognized as Foursquare Day in New York.

While NYC is one of 14 cities worldwide (so far) to recognize Foursquare Day, the geolocal startup's cofounders Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai, wrote on their blog that "this one is the most special for us — our amazing community of users has convinced our hometown Mayor to declare a foursquare holiday in New York City."

Bloomberg's proclamation reads, in part: 

New York City is proud to be the home of both the powerhouse companies and small startups that are thinking big, creating new jobs, and leading the global economy. Foursquare is one such success story. Started by Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai around Dennis’s kitchen table in the East Village, it now employs more than 60 people in New York and has more than eight million users worldwide. That is why we are proud to join Foursquare’s founders and fans in celebrating the first global social media holiday.

Foursquare Day, which started as an idea by Nate Bonilla-Warford, a Tampa, FL optometrist and fan, launched last year with celebrations as far as Pune, India.

As for why April 16th, "It is the 4th month, and the 4-squared day! (4/16)." It’s also billed as the first "Social Media holiday," meant to demonstrate the power of social media with in-person meet-ups and celebrations around the world.