Back in August, the gamified check-in app Swarm started offering users coins -- digital coins -- whenever they used the app to check in. At the time, the system was a bit confusing; the app introduced coins, but failed to give users a way to spend them. Now that's changed.
Starting today, the Foursquare-run service lets you spend coins on sticker upgrades. These upgrades, when used strategically, let you ... earn more coins?
OK, this is still pretty confusing. But let's go ahead and take an obvious leap: Swarm must eventually have plans to let users buy things other than stickers with coins, right? Like, discounts at businesses, or other digital goods? That would be interesting.
For now, the company won't tell us anything else. "We have a ton of ideas, and eventually there will be other ways to spend coins -- but nothing that we're ready to talk about just yet," a spokesperson told us.
Swarm played a major role in Foursquare's pivot last year, when the company officially transitioned from social app to business discovery tool. And despite Foursquare's decision to cast off check-ins into a secondary app, Swarm still serves as a major source of data for Foursquare's recommendation algorithm and ad product.
Updated 2:02 p.m. PT with additional context.