Yesterday, we found ourselves in Jacksonville Florida looking for a place for lunch. Rather than look around aimlessly we used Foursquare Explore to figure out a place to eat. This lead us to Mojo BBQ and probably the best beef brisket in Florida. Foursquare explore is a great way to figure out what to do and for the consumer it is much better than Facebook to decide on a place to go. Here’s how it works.

• Check in at whatever venue you are currently at or near. This gives foursquare an idea of where you are.
• Click on the explore button which is to the left of check in.
• On the top you will see two buttons: Recommended and Trending. Recommended places are places where there have been a lot of tips and restaurants added to lists as well as places you have been and your friends have been. Trending places are places where a lot of people are checking in right now so they might be one night only events.
• Next to Recommended is 5mi which is a drop down box which will control the radius of places that will appear as recommended or trending. If you are New York City a 1/2 mile radius might do well, but if you are in a place like Jacksonville, 10 miles may be better.
• You can choose what you are looking for like food, coffee, nightlife or enter in sushi and then click food.
• Once you choose your options and click a category like food, coffee, etc. You will get a list of places that are either recommended or trending and you can head off to the destination by clicking on the address and getting directions via Google maps or change your search around a little bit.

Our search was fairly simple, we were looking for lunch in a 10 mi area in Jacksonville and we ended up at Mojos. As a consumer this is an awesome app for discovery of new places around where I live and more importantly when I travel. However, as a marketer, I feel like it’s another missed opportunity for Foursquare. While I can set up a Foursquare page for people, it seems logical that I could pay Foursquare for a sponsorship on exploring. It could be fairly simple banner ad that appears above the results and has something like “sponsored” above it. This would be huge for small business because it could really help drive a locations awareness and possibly drive in customers. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this from foursquare soon. Until then as a marketer when looking at Foursquare v. Facebook, all my money is still going to Facebook.