You may recall a major app update last month with a stated goal to “reveal more of the world around you the moment you open up the app.” Then, a few weeks later, Foursquare completely redesigned their location pages to make them more photo-rich and informative. If you have increased traffic to your location pages (which Foursquare does) and want to continue to tout yourself as the go-to place for information on locations, you have to keep making those pages better.

Today, Foursquare is taking another step in that direction with an expansion of menus on restaurant pages.

“It’s a Saturday night and you’re meeting friends for dinner. You’ve narrowed the choices down to two popular Italian spots – but how to choose? Starting today, you’ll see more menus in Foursquare, so you can decide given what restaurants have to offer. In addition to SinglePlatform, we’ve also partnered with Locu (a company that shares our mission of helping restaurants and local businesses connect with customers),” says Foursquare.

Locu is a web-wide menu platform founded in 2011. Last year, it received $4 million in Series A funding, fyi. Foursquare has partnered with SinglePlatform on their menus since the launch of the “Explore” feature in January of 2012.

Right now, it’s just menus for restaurants – but Foursquare says that will eventually grow into price and service lists for a variety of businesses. That includes hair salons, gyms, dry cleaners, etc.

By opening up Foursquare’s data trove to everyone, they made a pretty big statement: We’re a big name in the location search game, and we want to challenge the likes of Yelp, Google Places, and Urbanspoon.

Now, Foursquare is continuing to revamp itself with a new redesign of location pages on the site. They’re more photo-rich, informative, and indicative of a company who is seeing increased traffic to said pages.

Here’s the current (old) pages design:

And here’s the new design for location pages on Foursquare.com:

What you’ll notice immediately is that photos have been given a much more prominent placement on the page. Also, the map has been moved from directly under the location name to the right-hand corner. In the new design, all of the pertinent information is front and center – the address, hours, rating, phone number, price, etc.

Plus, all of the “similar” suggestions on the right-hand side have been given photos and ratings.

Foursquare Web Engineering head Mike Singleton told The Next Web that Explore usage has double in the past two months. He also said that there are now some 50 million unique visitors to the site every month. Plenty of those are coming from non-members, who just happen to find Foursquare as a service to look up location information.

And that’s exactly what Foursquare wants.

The new design has yet to hit the web for all users, and we’re expecting an announcement from Foursquare in the near future. Foursquare knows that its future is in recommendations and detailed, competitive listings for all web users – not just check-ins and badges for members. This is what the company has been moving toward for the past year (remember that massive app update earlier this month?) and this is simply another step in that evolution.

For instance this year, Foursquare gave small businesses an incentive to offer specials today. They offered to feature any and all businesses who participated in the search results on foursquare.com.

“From checking in, to uploading tips, photos, and addresses, to telling friends about the app, the 33 million people on Foursquare have brought us to where we are today. Four years and over 3.5 billion check-ins since we launched, our community-created map of the world is more complete than ever,” says Foursquare.

In celebration of the 4th Foursquare Day, Foursquare has created a new interactive visualization that lets you look at your past year of check-ins in a few interesting ways.

First, you can organize them linearly by time, and then you can randomize them.

But the coolest ways to look at the past year of data is by category (food, nightlife, professional, shops, travel, etc):

And by connections, which will show you an awesome map of how you traveled between your check-ins:

You can check out your own visualization here.

It’s been a big year for Foursquare, complete with a bunch of core changes to the service that put more emphasis on search and recommendations than the app has ever done before. No bigger, though, than the recent update to version 6.0. Foursquare also announced $41 million in funding.

Also, remember to check-in today to receive your special 4sqDay 2013 badge. Foursuare may not be putting as much of an emphasis on the gamification aspect of the service, but that doesn’t mean that users still don’t love their badges.

CEO Dennis Crowley announced the funding Thursday morning.

“The stuff we’re building takes a lot of work. Look at yesterday’s big update, for example. The most amazing thing about it is that it tells you interesting things around you, anywhere in the world, the second you open the app. That’s not easy. We have to crunch your 3,500,000,000 check-ins, layer your social data over it, semantically analyze our tens of millions of tips, and take a look at real-time activity around you. We do all that in under a second, all to recommend two or three places that are perfect for you,” says Crowley.

“We’ve got a ton left to do. We’re building tools for local businesses to connect with their customers. We’re making search better, every single day. We’re building that location layer for the internet – the platform that all other companies use to power location in their apps. This takes time and a lot of work, and great investors.”

On Wednesday, Foursquare launched version 6.0, a significant update to both their iOS and Android platforms that puts local search and recommendations front and center. This update is more in line with the vision that Crowley has for the service – to move well beyond the check-in.

And along with the stated goals of expanding the service and building better tools, you know that Foursquare has to now focus more on monetization.

According to Bloomberg, Foursquare is planning on a whole new slew of ad partnerships, letting every merchant it works with buy ads. They’ll also be expanding their sales team to around 40 people. Foursquare has had ads for a while in the form of sponsored location posts inside the feed and in search results in the app. But they haven’t really taken off, with reports alleging Foursquare only generated about $2 million in revenue last year.

The majority of this $41 million comes in the form of a multiyear loan from Silver Lake, and everything else is convertible debt which can be exchanged for shares later. Taking on this debt allows Foursquare to buy itself some time to figure out how to monetize.

According to Crowley, 1.3 million businesses and 33 million users have “given a try” to Foursquare.

Here’s how Foursquare describes all the changes they’ve made to the app:

With the new Foursquare 6.0, we’re crunching all our data to show the best of what’s nearby, anywhere in the world, the second you open up the app. To help you discover all this, we totally redesigned the Foursquare app into four main sections. Here’s what you’ll see:

Search is now front-and-center at the top, so you can quickly find what you’re craving, or see things like trending places (in real-time) and top picks. Below that, you’ll see a map with nearby friends and interesting places highlighted. Tap on the map to expand it so you can see great places around you. After that, we show you the best things at that moment – our top personalized recommendations, along with your friends’ check-ins around the world. And, at the bottom, we have the new check-in button, for when you want to share and remember the places you go to.

Gone are the three tabs at the bottom of the screen that graced the previous versions (friends, explore, and me). Explore and your friend feed is all contained in the main feed, with search front and center. This is your “Home” screen. To access your profile and history, to-do lists, and more – just swipe right.

“Our goal with the new Foursquare is to reveal more of the world around you the moment you open up the app, and help you find exactly what you’re craving,” says Foursquare.

And to that end, Foursquare has completely redesigned both their iOS and Android apps to help achieve what the company has been working toward the last couple of years – moving beyond the check-in.

You may have heard that phrase a lot in reference to Foursquare in the past year or so, and with good reason. Foursquare launched back in 2009 with a focus on check-ins – and that’s about it. You checked in, earned some points, and maybe unlocked a badge. Yes, the app had a small social networking element to it – in that you could track your friends’ check-ins and see how you stacked up on a points leaderboard. And yes, you could browse nearby places. But in 2009, nobody would have called Foursquare a “local search” app. And they certainly wouldn’t have called it a premier place for “local discovery.”

Like I said before, Foursquare hasn’t just launched version 6.0, with its heavy focus on local search and recommendations, out of the blue. There has been a long march to this new vision of Foursquare. Let’s look at that march, starting about a year ago when Foursquare unveiled the “all new Foursquare.”

That update brought a completely redesigned friend feed to the mix – with larger photos, more information on tips, comments, and the ability to “like” individual check-ins. But the real work was done on the Explore tab. Foursquare integrated even more of their millions of data points to give users a better idea about what was going on around them, and why they should frequent nearby locations. The Explore tab began to notify users of nearby specials, “top picks” that ranked venues on the popularity in the Foursquare community. They added new categories to search like “food,” “nightlife,” and “trending,” all of which relied heavily on you and your friends’ past check-in data.

“This isn’t just a fresh coat of paint, it’s a whole new app. And, as such, it’s just the beginning. We’ve got lots more coming…” said Foursquare at the time.

Shortly after that, Foursquare updated their app to improve the map and give it even more search categories. Then, they introduced a new kind of rating for venues – a number between 1 and 10 that is based on user likes. Later, they added a “recently opened” category to the Explore tab. A few weeks after that, location pages were improved with larger, highlighted location photos. In the past couple of months, Foursquare crammed even more recommendations onto the Explore tab and bolstered the info on venue pages.

See what I’m saying? Foursquare has made tons of small tweaks leading up to this new Foursquare, one that truly looks and feels like a culmination of Foursquare’s true goal of becoming a top local search and recommendation engine to compete with the likes of Yelp, Urbanspoon, and yes, Facebook.

Of course, Foursquare isn’t abandoning the check-in. The check-in is one of the metrics that powers the service. Without it, the whole recommendation engine falls apart. That’s why you’ll see an ever-present check-in icon front and center at the bottom of your feed at all times.

To survive, Foursquare cannot simply be about the check-in. It has to be more. This update shows that it is more – a lot more. But whether or not users recognize this is left to be seen. You can grab the update today in the App Store and Google Play.

Foursquare has just announced that they will be automatically featuring any business that offers a Foursquare special in the search results on foursquare.com.

“It’s a great way to get even more eyes on your business!” says the company.

And if you plan to run a special, Foursquare says that you should print out this sign and plant it on your window, counter, or wherever.

Foursquare is pretty flexible on what kinds of specials you can run through their service. It can be monetary – like 10% off upon check-in. Or it can be a reward for a frequent customer or for the mayor. Foursquare makes an example of one local business who offered an express check-out line for those who checked-in on Foursquare.

4sqDay (Foursquare Day) is going on its 4th year this year. It’s alway celebrated on April 16th (4/16…4×4=16, get it?). The first 4sqDay was celebrated in 2010 in Tampa Bay. It was originally begun by Foursquare users but in 2011, after the success of the new holiday in an unofficial capacity, some cities hopped on the bandwagon. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg actually issued an official proclamation declaring 4/16 4sqDay in the city.

“We’ve updated the app to give you a better map experience. Now when you’re on the home screen looking at friends and interesting places nearby, or searching for “iced coffee” or “egg sandwich” in Explore, we’ll show you a map that you can expand, swipe, and zoom,” says Foursquare.

Probably the most useful effect of this update is that users will be able to make their searches more specific by zooming in on a specific portion of a map. Just zoom in to the smaller frame and tap “redo search” and only venues within that smaller radius will appear in your results.

We’ve updated our Android app with sweet interactive maps! Swipe, zoom, and explore to your heart’s content. bit.ly/11iz1AP

— Foursquare (@foursquare) April 2, 2013

Just a couple weeks ago, Foursquare updated its Android app to show suggestions based on whether you’re a tourist or a local.

You can grab the update right now over on Google Play.

“When you’re in a new city or neighborhood, Foursquare will show you popular places, sites, and must-see attractions. When you’re on your home turf, we’ll tell what spots are “new and notable” – places that have recently opened in your area,” says Foursquare.

Foursquare says that the new app will also highlight places on your to-do lists and uses that to make timely recommendations.

Back in February, Foursquare updated their Android app to display a map right when you open the app, complete with friends who are checked-in nearby and recommendations. That update also improved the Explore tab and made some tweaks to search.

You can grab the updated app today from Google Play.

Foursquare is now letting users check-in faster by employing a “tap and hold” feature in the app. Now, you can simply hold the place at which you’re checking-in (once accessed from the check-in icon at the top right) and Foursquare will check you in without taking you to the official check-in screen.

You can also tap and hold the blue check-in suggestion bar that pops up at the top of your feed when the app sense you’re nearby a certain location.

You’ll know it’s working by the green progress bar and the “Checking you in” status.

Although Foursquare has moved on to emphasizing other uses for their service (like as a true local search and discovery destination) and “moved beyond the check-in” as we all like to say, they still remind us that checking-in is vital to the service:

“Remember: each time you check in, you’re teaching us about the restaurants, bars, and shops you like, so we can give you even smarter recommendations in Explore. And now that it takes just a split-second, it’s even easier to check in everywhere you go,” they say.

“Whether your go-to brunch spot is too crowded, or you’re walking around looking for dinner options after a movie, it’s great to be able to find places quickly. With today’s iPhone release, we’ve updated Explore to show you more recommendations on a single screen, so you can compare results and make decisions faster,” says Foursquare.

Nothing else about the Explore tab has changed – you’ll still see ratings, friends who have been to the locations, specials, tips, and more.

You’ll also get info on places that are new and trending – a pretty useful feature for discovering places that you haven’t been to yet.

Grab the update right now from the App Store.