Foursquare Ties Up with Starbucks, Free Barista Badges for Every Check-in

Foursquare continues its quest for media hype dominance with yet another interesting feature. It just launched a new promotional gig that ties it up with Starbucks. So, on Thursday, the next time you visit a Starbucks outlet and check-in to your Foursquare account, you will be rewarded with a barista badge.

The Starbucks barista badge can be earned if you’ve checked-in to five Startbucks outlet. Although, there’s no physical reward yet is given if you earn the barista badge, I’m pretty sure Starbucks and Foursquare will come with something to give out some form of physical rewards in the future. A free tall Cappuccino perhaps for every barista badge earned? This may sound appealing for frequent Startbucks customers, but Starbucks’ Chris Bruzzo, vice president for brand, content and online said that the company is eyeing different rewards set, not just free Starbucks drinks.

This is a rather unique gig and both companies stand a chance of getting positive gains from this deal. Starbucks can use Foursquare to gather feedbacks from clients and perhaps gain new clients as well since Foursquare members can easily share their feedback to their network of friends on Foursquare.

For Foursquare, it already gained from the deal since Starbucks is planning to use the Foursquare business analytics tools that it recently launched.

So, the next time you visit a Starbucks outlet, don’t forget to check it in to your Foursquare account. You might be the first person to earn that “prestigious” barista badge.