Give simple, clever webapp #mom the phone number of that special someone who worries about you (e.g., your mom), connect it with your Foursquare account, and then tag any notification-worthy Foursquare check-in with #mom—say when you land at that far-flung airport. The service will place a call or send a text to your loved one letting her know you made it safely. Brilliant. More »

The Gillmor Gang — Dennis Crowley, John Taschek, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — visit with the ghosts of Foursquare Past, Present, and Future. @dens is semi-bicoastal these days, trying to stay ahead of his growing business. He just moved in to a new office in NY, and the one in SF is expanding as rapidly as he can hire.

We try to get him to say bad things about Google +, but he demurs. But he never escapes the Gang without leaving a bit more of his roadmap than he anticipates. Of course, you’ll need gamification chops to uncover it.

@stevegillmor, @dens, @jtaschek, @kevinmarks

Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor

Sure, your mom carried you for nine months. And yeah, she wiped your bum for years, put clothes on your back, and made sure you got a decent education so you could move to California and rock a hoodie and work somewhere where there’s always beer in the fridge and go-karts to be ridden. But can you really be expected to call her from time to time to let her know where you are? Time is money, Mom. Get on Foursquare or something.

Looking to ease the anxiety for the mothers of the world whose brats kids are too busy to call is #hashtagmom. You check-in somewhere on Foursquare with the titular #mom hashtag, and it’ll do all the talking (or texting) for you.

To begin, you punch in your mom’s phone number and then login to the service with Foursquare (from which it’ll grab your first name, determine whether to call you “Son” or “Daughter”, and monitor your check-ins). From there, any check-ins with the “#mom” hashtag will be relayed to her by text or phone call. As their example, the check-in “Landed! #mom” could ring up your mom and say “Hi! Your [son/daughter] [Your name here] asked us to let you know he is safely at JFK airport. He said, “Landed!”

According to the guys who built it (Jeff Weinstein and Steve Pike), the service was built as a “fun side project” to help them wrap their heads around the Twilio/Foursquare APIs that power it.

(And don’t ask me what the mom is doing with her non-phone-holding hand in that picture. I have no idea.)

Timehop, a startup that humbly began as 4SquareAnd7YearsAgo, has just bagged a $1.1 million round of seed funding by OATV (Bryce Roberts) and followed on by Spark Capital (Andrew Parker) and a pretty worth list of angels including Foursquare’s Dennis Crowley, Naveen Selvadurai and Alex Rainert, Groupme’s Steve Martocci and Jared Hecht, Rick Webb and Kevin Slavin. Timehop was part of the TechStars NYC winter class.

The startup started out aggregating Foursquare user checkins from a year ago in a daily email and recently broadened to include Facebook status updates, photos, Twitter updates and Instagram posts.

It’s actually pretty amazing that Crowley and Sevadurai have gone in, as the startup was created at a Foursquare hackathon about a year ago. “I love what those guys are doing and I love that it’s one of the first breakout apps using our API,” Crowley said on why he invested. He also tweeted out this pretty humorous explanation about why he likes the service yesterday (before the funding was announced).

My @timehop daily email just made me literally LOL. (on a checkin from 12 months ago, "smells like cats in here")—
Dennis Crowley (@dens) January 23, 2012

“We’re building Timehop into the best way of recording, remembering, and reconnecting around our digital histories,” co-founder Jonathan Wegener told me, “The data exhaust of today’s services can tell your life story, but so far this data remains disaggregated and silo’d across devices and services. The ‘history’ sections of most websites leave a lot to be desired and represent an opportunity to build a service that helps you celebrate the past and reconnect with others around it.”

Sure some have pointed out that Timehop really doesn’t solve a problem (there’s a whole Quora thread on it here).  To that Wegener responds, “Asking what ‘problem’ Timehop solves may be asking the wrong question. That’s the equivalent of asking “what problem do photographs solve?” Clearly taking photos is a mainstream and frequent activity, but it doesn’t really solve a ‘problem’ but rather scratches a deeply human itch. Timehop scratches that same itch.”

Wegener plans on using the funding to add another two or three engineers to the Timehop team and further integrating the product with other services.

Last week, Foursquare announce its latest Explore feature, which leveraged its 1.5 billion checkins into personalized recommendations for users. And as if that wasn’t enough to lure hungry urbanites to its full-service platform, starting today, Foursquare will publish pricing menus for over 250,000 local businesses across 13,000 markets in the U.S. whether it’s a spa, salon or bun-jee jumping adventure.

Not only will the popular check-in app display this information, but pricing menus will soon be available on the hundreds of apps powered by Foursquare’s API. And these menus, delivered by NYC startup SinglePlatform, will be kept updated in realtime. For now, menus are available at foursquare.com and m.foursquare.com, and will be coming soon to all of Foursquare’s apps.

After spending 10-years leading online delivery service SeamlessWeb, Wiley Cerilli launched SinglePlatform in January 2010 to ease restaurants into the next course of Internet marketing and social media. Restaurants provide SinglePlatform with their information like menus, photos, events and specials through an easy-to-use portal and SinglePlatform updates this across their hundreds of publishing partners including hotels, city guides, restaurant review sites and application developers.

SinglePlatform is a win for both publishers and local businesses. And Foursquare is just the start. SinglePlatform will be announcing its complete core publisher network in a month’s time, which already includes mega partners such as The New York Times. The service currently includes 400,000 menus covering over 13,000 cities in the US, with international venues coming soon. ”We’re leveling the playing field for local businesses,” explains Cerilli, the startup’s Founder and CEO. “Now, they can go to one platform for just $400 a year and have their profiles across all of these different sites and mobile applications.”

SinglePlatform  has completed two rounds of fundings for a total of $4.45 million, backed by First Round Capital, DFJ Gotham, New World Ventures, RRE and the founders of Seamless.

image credit: ssuaphotos via shutterstock

I’ve been fascinated by social mobile location services since at least 2006 when, three years before Foursquare and year after Google acquired Dodgeball, a UK entrepreneur created BuddyPing, now sadly defunct, and right up to the launch of Pin Drop the other day. The rise of the iPhone shortly after created an ecosystem of location-aware apps which has continued to mushroom ever since. But there’s one thing that has frustrated me. Seeing where people are right now is all very well. But I what really want to know is – where will they be next?

Now I think I may have found potentially my Nirvana: Uberlife (an alpha iPhone app is here).

If you’re a heavy foursquare user like I am, you know that your check-in data from over the years is pretty interesting to look at. While it’s extremely interesting, you might not have known how useful it could be. Part of the reason for that is because foursquare has focused on creating a killer app that allows you to log all of the places you visit for yourself, and for your friends.

Today, foursquare took a gigantic leap forward by bringing its “Explore” offering to the web. Last November, the company gave its website a huge facelift by making foursquare places look prettier and easier to discover. This release goes way further than that, finally turning all of that check-in data into a real actionable web experience.

By pulling together its 1,500,000,000 check-ins, “tens of millions” of tips, and over half million lists, foursquare has now become more of a complete service. Here’s what the company had to say about Explore for the web:

Finally, because Explore is powered by check-ins and foursquare Tips, it’s not just personalized, it’s specific. Search for ‘pool table,’ or ‘guacamole’; ‘deep dish,’ or ‘thin crust.’ Because not all bars, Mexican restaurants, or pizza joints are created equal, and we want to make sure you find what you’re craving.

As the company has made efforts to make it easier to not only check-in, but share tips and specific information about a location, that data can now be used in any number of ways. We’ve already seen it in action with mashups like FoursCrowd, that predicts how busy a particular spot might be.

When you visit Explore on the web and login to your account, you’re presented with a map and search options. It now becomes a community driven and extremely social version of Google Maps, and also a way better offering than Google Places.

The results themselves display in a way that makes all of the data you and your friends have given over the years seem worthwhile. If you’re looking for pizza in your area, you’ll be shown a map of all of the local places, along with information about them on the left. It’s not just information pulled from businesses or Yelp, it’s information that matters to you. You’re shown which of your friends have checked in, as well as pictures and tips about the venue.

It’s as if this was foursquare’s master plan all along. To provide a rich experience like this, you need massive amounts of data. Phase 1 was the app, which brought the company that data. This phase brings everything together in a way that absolutely blows Google’s properties out of the water. Why? Because when you search for Places on Google, there’s not much information there.

While foursquare has done deals with media properties for promotional purposes and specials with companies like American Express, this is the type of product that is easily monetizable. For example, foursquare could simply sell a premium listing that would show at the top of the results, much like Google does.

By pulling all of our data together and presenting it to us in this useful fashion, foursquare has somehow found a way to make us want to use its service more often. Google on the other hand hasn’t found that “hook” as of yet with its social properties.

➤ foursquare Explore

The nominations have been tabulated and the votes are in. Over 300,000 nominations were calculated across 20 categories. Along with our partners GigaOm and VentureBeat, we are very proud to announce the finalists for 2011′s best in technology. Voting begins now.

For 2011, we’ve added some new categories. Best Location App, Best Cloud Services and Biggest Social Impact join the Crunchies ranks this year. You’ll also find Best Social App, the NYC-dominated category of Best Shopping App, Best New Startup and the year’s best VC’s and Angel Investors. Newcomers like TaskRabbit’s Leah Busque and Keith Rabois for his angel investments (Airbnb, LinkedIn, Yammer, Path, YouTube) made the list of finalists, as well as industry favorites such as Marc Andreessen, Jack Dorsey, Mark Pincus and Ron Conway.

There are some pretty good match-ups this year. Google+ is up against Facebook Timeline for Best Social App, along with the New New Twitter, Instagram, and Path 2.0). The Kindle Fire is competing with the iPad 2 for Best New Device. And Pinterest, Turntable.fm, Nest, Fab, and Codecademy are all vying for Best New Startup (even though two of those were complete pivots). LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman is up for Angel of the Year. His seed investment in Zynga is worth 160 times what he paid for it. But AngelList founders Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi are also finalists in the category for helping to democratize angel investing, along with Conway, Rabois, Y Combinator’s Paul Graham, and Kevin Rose (who has a killer portfolio that includes Twitter, Foursquare, Zynga, and Square). Who will win?

Everyone is eligible and encouraged to vote. The rules state that you may vote once per day, per award category, until voting closes on Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 11:59pm PST. There are 20 award categories open for voting, recognizing the top accomplishments across a variety of fields and roles. If you are one of the finalists, create a badge and get your community excited about this honor and get them to vote for you. Winners will be announced on January 31, live at the Crunchies.

In addition to today’s announcement of the Finalists, we are happy to release our next batch of tickets through Eventbrite. The release begins now, so act fast and get them while you can.

Here are your Finalists:

Best Technology Achievement (2010 winner: Google Self Driving Cars)
Lytro
NFC
OnLive
Siri
Tesla Flat Pack Battery

Best Social Application (2010 winner: DailyBooth)
Facebook Timeline
Instagram
Google+
The New New Twitter
Path 2.0

Best Shopping Application (2010 winner: Groupon)
Birchbox
Fab
Gilt Groupe
Lot18
Warby Parker

Best Mobile Application (2010 winner: Google Mobile Maps for Android)
Evernote
Flipboard
Pandora
Spotify
Square
TaskRabbit

Best Location Application (New category for 2011)
Airbnb
Foursquare
Grindr
RunKeeper
Uber

Best Tablet Application (2010 winner: Flipboard)
djay
Eventbrite At the Door
Fotopedia
GarageBand
Netflix
StumbleUpon

Best Design (2010 winner: gogobot)
Gojee
Orchestra
Path 2.0
Pinterest
Quora

Best Bootstrapped Startup (2010 winner: addmired)
Github
Imgur
Instapaper
Onesheet
Tap Tap Tap (Camera+)

Best Cloud Service (New category for 2011)
Asana
Box
CloudFlare
Dropbox
Okta
Twilio

Best International Startup (2010 winner: Viki)
Badoo
Klarna
Peixe Urbano
Rovio
SoundCloud
Wonga

Best Clean Tech Startup (2010 winner: SolarCity)
Alta Energy
Array Power
EcoATM
EcoMotors
Hara

Best New Device (2010 winner: iPad)
Galaxy Nexus
iPad 2
iPhone 4S
Kindle Fire
Nest

Best Time Sink (2010 winner: Cityville)
Modern Warfare 3
Quora
Skyrim
Turntable.fm
Words With Friends

Biggest Social Impact (New category for 2011)
Charity: Water
Khan Academy
Kickstarter
Practice Fusion
Twitter

Angel of the Year (2010 winner: Paul Graham)
Ron Conway
Paul Graham
Reid Hoffman
Keith Rabois
Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi (AngelList)
Kevin Rose

VC of the Year (2010 winner: Yuri Milner)
Marc Andreessen & Ben Horowitz
Matt Cohler
Vinod Khosla
Aileen Lee
Yuri Milner
David Sze

Founder of the Year (2010 winner: Mark Pincus)
Leah Busque (Task Rabbit)
Brian Chesky (Airbnb)
Jack Dorsey (Square, Twitter)
Susan Feldman & Ali Pincus (One Kings Lane)
Drew Houston (Dropbox)

CEO of the Year (2010 winner: Andrew Mason)
Dick Costolo (Twitter)
Daniel Ek (Spotify)
Phil Libin (Evernote)
Mark Pincus (Zynga)
Jeff Weiner (LinkedIn)

Best New Startup of 2011 (2010 winner: Quora)
Codecademy
Fab
Nest
Pinterest
Turntable.fm

Best Overall Startup of 2011 (2010 winner: Twitter)
Dropbox
Instagram
Gilt Groupe
Spotify
Square
Tumblr

5th Annual Crunchies Awards
Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall
201 Van Ness Ave.
San Francisco, CA

7:30pm – midnight – Awards Ceremony and After Party
A night of celebration with festive attire.

Our sponsors help make the Crunchies happen, if you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities during the ceremony or after-party, please contact Jeanne Logozzo at jeanne@techcrunch.com.

For press credentials, please fill out this request form and confirmations will be sent separately via email.

Depending on what type of person you are, you might want to head to a coffee shop that is bustling with people, or one where there’s nobody to be found. If you require activity or quietness, this app for foursquare will help you decide on your next stop.

FoursCrowd uses foursquare’s API to show you which locations in your area are the most popular, and uses data from previous days to predict whether that spot will be popular at any given time.

The app will get your location through your browser and doesn’t require you to log-in to show trending locations. If you’re bored or want to stay away from a crowd, this is worth a play.

What’s hot?

The app updates itself in real-time as more foursquare check-ins occur. When you start using the app, your location will yield the top five hotspots:

Based on the information above, you might choose to stay away from Philz Coffee since it’s extremely crowded and probably doesn’t have a place for you to sit down and work. While you can’t judge a location based on foursquare check-in data alone, it’s definitely a decent gauge if you’re in a major city where foursquare adoption is high.

If you click on hot close-by venue, you’re shown how many people are checked in and how likely the location is crowded based on historical check-in data. This is a feature I’d love to see on the official foursquare app. Since it makes all of this historical data available in its API, it would be a great move to tell me what times the venues are the most crowded.

This is just a further illustration of how important third-party developers can be for the ecosystem of a popular service. Since foursquare can’t build every feature, it can rely on developers like this to create services that peak our curiosity.

For a major metropolitan area like San Francisco, it’s nice to get a glimpse into what restaurants might be full before venturing out and getting frustrated later.

➤ FoursCrowd

I really enjoy simple apps that do things that make my life easier or more interesting. Whenever you go to the supermarket, you probably have a list with you, but Check-in Recipe will fire a new recipe off to you every time you check-in at a supermarket on foursquare.

It’s like having your mom give you a call to share something new she whipped up in the kitchen. While it doesn’t sound like much, it’s a neat add-on if you’re a foursquare power-user.

Just sign in with your Twitter account and authorize your foursquare credentials, and you’ll be sent a direct message on Twitter with a link to a new recipe for every grocery store you check into.

The app was built by Ruby hacker Zach Hale, and is even thoughtful enough to ask if you’re vegan or vegetarian before sending recipes to you. I’m hoping that this isn’t a weekend project, because the concept has some legs to it. I love the idea of having suggestions sent to me in real-time depending on where I check in, especially something like recipes that could impact my shopping decisions.

➤ Check-in Recipe