Just in time for summer, Mayorships return to Swarm

Eleven months after checking-out of the check-in game, Foursquare is re-gamifying its Swarm app by bringing back Mayorships.

That's right Swarm fans, you can now compete to be Mayor of a location on Swarm, not just against your friends — but against all users.

The move was announced on Monday on Foursquare's blog and in an update on iOS and Android.

Foursquare famously split its app into two parts, Swarm and Foursquare, last May. In July, it made the switch official, forcing users to check-in using Swarm

The problem with Swarm — as we pointed out at the time — was that it took a lot of the fun out of Foursquare. You no longer had leaderboards, badges or mayorships. In fact, the entire game aspect Foursquare spent more than five years building disappeared overnight. Read more...