Foursquare, arguably the hottest, heavily-courted, high-tech startup since Twitter, has just inked (no pun intended) a deal with the most widely-read newspaper in the US, The Wall Street Journal. A selection of WSJ.com articles (NYC restaurant reviews and other local cultural coverage) now include an "Add to Foursquare" button. As TechCrunch astutely notes, "one surefire way to know that a service is doing well is when you see their buttons start appearing all over the web. We've seen it with Facebook, we've seen it with Twitter (Tweetmeme buttons), and now we're going to start seeing it with Foursquare".
The most basic purpose of the feature is to enable readers to obtain contact and condensed review information for a destination that they happen to read about on WSJ. Foursquare's elevator pitch is that it can be used "to create "To Do" lists of all the things you want to experience. Keep track of restaurants to go to, bands to see or art exhibits to check out." This is complimented by social-networking functionality which enables groups of friends to find out about new restaurants or hotspots through the system.

What might this latest development indicate in terms of the WSJ's big-picture strategy? One answer is that the Journal is continuing to focus in two areas: mobile and local. In terms of the former, one need only look to the bevy of custom apps (iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and 'Mobile Reader' for Blackberry) to see the WSJ's commitment to mobile content. More recently (starting in late April), the WSJ has also shown a major interest in local content as evidenced by the launch of their "New York City metro" section. It is hard to say exactly what the WSJ has in planned in terms of fully capitalizing on this new direction, but the general path towards hyper connected local content is clear.

The WSJ was actually not the first major daily to integrate articles with Foursquare. That honour belongs to the Canadian free newspaper 'Metro' (owned by Sweedish conglomerate Metro International) which introduced Foursquare into its pages back in January. Back in January, Mashable wrote that "[a]s part of the partnership, Metro created a robust Foursquare presence that includes restaurant reviews, city tips, to-dos and even articles that mobile app users can stumble upon as they traverse Canadian points of interest. Metro readers and tourists alike can think of the editorial content inside Foursquare as a travel guide book that highlights useful articles and unlocks the best a neighbourhood has to offer...Metro plans to feature "Mayor Deals every Friday" in its publication. The deals are alternative ad buys for businesses looking to offer and promote mayor-only specials.

You can find a live example of The WSJ's Foursquare functions by clicking here.

Sources: Tech Crunch, Business Insider, Editor & Publisher