Canada's Yellow Pages Group Announces Strategic Agreement With foursquare
YellowAPI is happy to announce its participation in the venue harmonization project of foursquare!
See Press Release below. For FAQ about the venue harmonization, click here.
MONTREAL, QUEBEC--(Marketwire - June 7, 2011) -
In a further extension of its commitment to supporting application developer innovation in Canada and to driving additional potential leads to its advertisers, Yellow Pages Group (YPG) announced today its participation in the venue harmonization project of foursquare, a location-based social networking site.
Like contributing partners in this project, YPG adds to the authentication and accuracy of business locations in the foursquare database, as foursquare breaks out venues into a separate API, making location-based app development even easier for developers.
"Through agreements such as this one, we continue to increase the value proposition of our public API, www.YellowAPI.com, and multiply traffic driven to our advertisers by making sure their businesses appear in major online and social networking destinations," said Nicolas Gaudreau, Vice-President, Digital & Print Media, Acquisition & Retention at Yellow Pages Group.
YPG is the first Canadian company to participate in foursquare's venue harmonization project, rendering 1.5 million Canadian business listings and information accessible to the social networking site through www.YellowAPI.com, the company's open platform application programming interface.
"We not only want to make location integration as easy as possible for developers, but we want to make sure we're providing accurate and verified information. We're really pleased that Yellow Pages Group has come on as our Canadian partner in authenticating local business listings," said Eric Friedman, Director of Business Development for foursquare.
The harmonization will also allow the hundreds of developers using www.YellowAPI.com to integrate foursquare functionality into their apps.
To view a video on www.YellowAPI.com featuring interviews with some of the app developers who use it, click here.
About Yellow Pages Group
Yellow Pages Group (YPG) is Canada's leading performance media and marketing solutions company. The Company serves approximately 370,000 local businesses through its nation-wide sales force of over 1,200 media consultants. YPG also caters to the country's largest national agencies and advertisers through Mediative, its digital advertising and marketing solutions division. YPG is held by Yellow Media Inc. (TSX:YLO) which owns and operates some of Canada's leading properties and publications including Yellow Pages™ directories, YellowPages.ca™, Canada411.ca™, LesPAC.com, and RedFlagDeals.com. The Yellow Media Inc. network of online properties reaches over 9.5 million unique visitors monthly. For more information: www.ypg.com.
About foursquare
Foursquare is a location-based mobile platform that makes cities easier to use and more interesting to explore. By "checking in" via a mobile app or mobile web, users share their location with friends while collecting points and virtual badges. Foursquare guides real-world experiences by allowing users to bookmark information about venues that they want to visit and surfacing relevant suggestions about nearby venues. Merchants and brands leverage the foursquare platform by utilizing a wide set of tools to obtain, engage, and retain customers and audiences. For more information, visit http://foursquare.com.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q: What are you announcing?
A: Foursquare and YellowAPI will be entering into an API venue harmonization agreement. You can read more details about the project on the Foursquare blog: http://blog.foursquare.com/2011/03/14/1up-the-importance-of-platforms-and-how-we%E2%80%99re-extending-ours/
Q: What does it mean for YellowAPI developers?
A: YellowAPI developers will be able to easily add Foursquare social data in their applications including mayors, checkins and tips simply by using the YellowAPI merchant ID. We will be providing code samples on all major development platforms.
Q: What does it mean for Foursquare developers?
A: Foursquare developers will be able to use rich curated information from YellowAPI (including videos, photos, accepted credit cards & hours of operation) and open up opportunities to monetize your apps through the YellowAPI Developer Program (http://www.yellowapi.com/devprogram), by driving high quality traffic and integrating through the Yellow Ad Network. Here is an example of the Foursquare API call which will be used to retrieve the YellowAPI merchant ID: https://developer.foursquare.com/docs/explore.html#req=venues/3fd66200f964a52074e31ee3/links
Q: Does YellowAPI include worldwide listings?
A: No - YellowAPI covers 1.5M merchant listings in Canada only. Foursquare has a worldwide venue database.
Q: When will this functionality be available?
A: We are working hard with Foursquare’s engineers to make the functionality available as soon as possible. Please keep an eye on our Twitter feed (http://www.twitter.com/yellowapi), Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/YellowAPIcom-Official/187475997941109) and join our newsletter (developer@yellowapi.com) for up to the minute details.
