New version of Foursquare to arrive next week

"We just found an app approval in our stocking! New foursquare early next week. Thanks #SantaJobs," the social checkin service tweeted.

Expect the next version of Foursquare to get a lot more personal. When I dropped by for an interview with co-founder Naveen Selvadurai at Foursquare's New York City headquarters last week, he hinted that the next version of Foursquare would begin offering personalized recommendations to users based on where they and their friends had previously checked in -- not just for places, but also what they should do at those places.

"When (Foursquare) knows you, it should ping you about some amazing store nearby. The goal is to create something that teaches you something about you(rself) and gets you out to discover new places...(When you arrive at a restaurant, for instance, Foursquare) should recommend that your mom order this and that you should get the salad. It should remember that you were there."

Selvadurai also suggested that the game mechanics of Foursquare would shift slightly, with less of an emphasis on competing against others (i.e. for mayorships, or your city's leaderboard), but against oneself.

"We want to make the game more personal," he said. "The leaderboard is daunting to some people. Going into the next phase of our game mechanics, it's about making the game more personal. It's you against yourself," he hinted. Whether we'll see any of these more personalized gaming features in next week's release is unclear.

In addition, a recently leaked screenshot suggests that the new edition might include the ability to upload and view photos of various venues.

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