Location-sharing service Foursquare has updated its Android app so that users can check-in and share content via NFC. Users can now tap an NFC tag in a shop or restaurant and carry out a check-in, so long as they are equpped with an NFC-enabled handset. The company says the new approach is quicker than the existing process for check-ins.  In addition users can share content such as locations and lists by tapping their NFC-enabled handsets together and then making use of Android Beam, the P2P technology that is included in the latest Ice Cream Sandwich version of the OS.  Foursquare demonstrated its support for NFC at last year’s Google I/O event.  

“The user experience is great. You hold the phone against the tap [NFC tag in a shop/restaurant) and the check-in screen pops up and you are shaving valuable seconds off the check-in,” said Holger Luedorf, Foursquare’s VP of mobile and international, talking about NFC with Untether.tv.  However Foursquare has not updated its app to handle payments via NFC. Asked about the subject of mobile payments (although not specifically via NFC) Luedorf said: “We have no specific plans I can talk of but it’s certainly something we are looking at because I’m very bullish on mobile payments going forward.”

Back on the subject of NFC, Luedorf highlighted its potential for Foursquare: “We are really waiting for more NFC devices to come into the market and more NFC chips in stores but we would like to leverage this because pinpointing someone down to a certain location through a NFC chip definitely has a lot of value”.