Foursquare now lets you spend your coins in Swarm
You know those coins that you’ve been collecting — and that have been collecting dust — in Swarm by Foursquare? Well, you can finally spend them on something.
Earn bonus coins with special stickers
In Swarm, coins double as points that are tallied weekly to determine which spots you and your friends get in the app’s leaderboard (a popular feature of the old Foursquare app that was reintroduced in Swarm several months ago).
You can get bonus coins for streaks, mayorships, or any out-of-the-ordinary check-ins. But an update to Swarm last month has also enabled you to earn bonus coins by adding certain stickers to your check-ins, such as the Joey Beans and Famous Ray stickers when you check in at a coffee shop or a pizza place, respectively.
Upgrade stickers to earn more coins
And now, with its latest update, Swarm is finally letting you use your coins as virtual currency and spend them on something — although what that something is may be a bit underwhelming.
Are you ready? Well, you can now spend your coins in your in-app wallet, not to redeem coupons and other deals from partner establishments, but to upgrade your stickers. What happens when you upgrade your stickers? Well, you get to earn more … coins!
Tap the diamond tab in Swarm to go to your sticker book. There you can upgrade some of the app’s most popular stickers in exchange for certain amounts of coins from your wallet.
Once a sticker has been upgraded, you get double coin earnings every time you use it to check in at a relevant place, e.g. your upgraded Lappy Toppy sticker would earn twice what you have otherwise when you check in at the office.
Note, though, that a special sticker can be used only once a week. So choose wisely where you check in with it, making sure that it results in the most number of coins to help you climb to the top of the leaderboard and help you upgrade more stickers for more coins. It’s a vicious cycle.
Check out the new version of Swarm
The latest update to Swarm also brings improvements to the settings section (including an option for leaderboard notification) along with the usual round of bug fixes and performance enhancements.
Designed for iPhone and iPod touch, Swarm by Foursquare is available on the App Store for free.
As for the main Foursquare app, it’s also free to download from the App Store. Rather than being focused on check-ins and other social networking aspects, the Foursquare app has since the launch of Swarm been something of a Yelp competitor as it focuses on search for and discovery of restaurants, shops, and more.
