Foursquare Aims To Improve Venue Database By Expanding Superuser Program

Foursquare’s superuser program, now 40,000 people strong, is getting an overhaul.

The company says it’ll soon launch an automated test that will make it easier for users to become superusers — they’re the ones with special privileges to edit business listings and venues in Foursquare’s database of 55 million places. (Non-superusers can only suggest changes to businesses and venues in Foursquare’s database.)

The test, which may be ready as soon as next week, will give users a list of suggested edits and then measure their responses for accuracy. Those who pass the test can immediately get promoted to superuser status.

Until now, Foursquare’s six-person support team has manually reviewed all superuser applications.

The idea, ultimately, is improved local search results and location reporting. Foursquare expects the change to improve its venue database, which — in addition to powering the Foursquare mobile apps and website — is also used by Waze, Instagram, Uber and other partners.

Foursquare says it typically sees more than a million edits to its venues database each month. And, while testing new tools recently, the number of edits is up 400 percent.