Foursquare's Crowley Talks About a Real NY Marathon Badge (Coming Soon to a D: Dive Into Mobile Near You)

So what did Foursquare co-founder and CEO Dennis Crowley do when he was running the New York Marathon last week?

Three guesses and the first two don’t count: He checked in to the popular geolocation service from every mile marker on the 26-mile route.

Of course he did. (And you can see how here.)

It was, I will admit, somewhat charming, as Crowley most certainly was when I interviewed him onstage at a mobile conference earlier this week.

He also gave a very interesting talk about the future of Foursquare, painting a picture of a virtuous ecosystem of third-party developers helping to take the start-up into a place that’s much more than just a badge game and check-in service.

I have definitely given Crowley a bit of a hard time about a bunch of stuff, including taking the New York-based service from a hot mess of a trend to a cool necessity for consumers.

And, in the video below, he’s starting to make a very credible argument about how the company will evolve, even as it fights off intense competition from other rivals and, most especially, social networking giant Facebook’s Places offering.

I will be interviewing Crowley again at D: Dive Into Mobile on December 7 in San Francisco, where we will delve into Foursquare’s future even more.

Until then, enjoy the video interview I did, including Crowley showing off his real New York Marathon prize: