Foursquare reveals plans for two-day hackathon in September

Separate events planned in New York, San Francisco, Tokyo and Paris. Will London check in too?

Social location service Foursquare has announced plans for a two-day hackathon for developers to produce pizza-fuelled new apps based on the company's API.

The event will take place on the weekend of 17-18 September, with official sessions in New York, San Francisco, Tokyo and Paris. However, Foursquare wants developers elsewhere to hold their own hackathons that weekend too, and has created a webpage to link them up.

Foursquare held its first hackathon a year ago for 150 developers, but is expanding the initiative this time round, now that more than 10,000 people are working with the Foursquare API.

"There will be prizes, swag, and featured blog posts for the best hacks, no matter where in the world they come from," promises the company.

Hack days are all the rage at the moment, with many services and apps providing APIs for developers to tinker with. The best hacks from these events can develop into commercially available apps in their own right, so September's hackathon may spawn some interesting spin-offs.