Foursquare makes it easier to book a restaurant through OpenTable, thanks to Button’s deep-linking

Location-based social network and local discovery service Foursquare is making it easier to make restaurant reservations through OpenTable directly from within the Foursquare mobile app.

Though Foursquare and OpenTable’s partnership dates all the way back to 2012, the companies are making moves to improve the integration.

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Now when you search for a restaurant through the main Foursquare app, you’ll see the OpenTable icon, which you can then tap to view table availability directly within Foursquare — no need to switch between Foursquare and OpenTable. The reservation can be completed there and then, though the actual final transaction still takes place within the OpenTable app with a single tap of the “Reserve” button.

If that app isn’t installed on the user’s phone, Button “seamlessly installs OpenTable” and links the users to the reservation confirmation page. The overall experience, however, from searching for a restaurant through to booking a table, is now a handful of taps shorter than before.

To help power the new integration, Foursquare turned to deep-linking platform Button, a service Foursquare also embraced to power the Uber integration that rolled out back in June. That tie-up made it easy to beckon a car directly through the Foursquare app.

Today’s refreshed OpenTable integration only applies to Foursquare users in the U.S.