A service like foursquare can be useful to different people in different ways. Some people use it as a personal record, some people use it for discovery, some as a social app, some like the game, etc… Many people might initially come for the game and stay for the deals.
For example, when I lived in NYC I used to enjoy the game aspect and knowing where my friends were. When I moved to Tokyo, these weren't that useful to me. Now I still heavily use the application because I find their venue locations to be more accurate than google maps.
Beware of people predicting doom because it doesn't solve their pet-problem. I can't tell you how many friends I have that initially signed up with twitter, posted 5 or 10 tweets and then went dark for months or years only to become active again. Twitter failed to solve a problem for those users initially. What held twitter through (besides tons of investment money) is a core user group that loved the service as it is today. Foursquare has that.
I think I'd put what Foursquare has done well/not done well into three buckets:
1. Virality - Highly viral product that got shared enough to the point that almost everyone knows about it (in current target demographic). Throw up that Mission Accomplished banner.
2. Engagement: Falls off here. Most early adopters got bored, and it's just now catching on with what I would call the "early majority." This would be fine except they're running through the same cycle of being bored by checkins. Reviews/Radar seems like an attempt to engage their users beyond check-ins, which probably seems more confusing than anything else for the typical early majority user. I think the problem here is that they've lost the "core user group" (aka that bored early adopter) you're talking about...the type of people that would spend time curating lists, putting up great content, and getting a kick out of people checking in to their recommendations.
3. Monetization: Nobody seems to care about this anymore, but with their level of funding/valuation, it's probably becoming increasingly difficult to tell them that they're just a few pivots away from making money. However, until they have a clear idea of how people will engage with their product, I'm not so sure they'll know how to monetize. It seems like 4square is pushing towards some sort of CRM system for local merchants, but I don't think I'm smart enough to know the right answer to this one.
"A service like foursquare can be useful to different people in different ways."
Which indicates that their focus is too broad to capture a critical mass of users that use it in the same way. I don't think a pivot is necessary, just a focus. They probably have enough $ to figure it out, but IMHO they need to find something soon and stick with it. I suppose "Radar" is supposed to be it, but I don't see it.
I don't really see Foursquare's use case being for tourism. I see it as more of a Yelp replacement. And for that, I thoroughly enjoy it more. The problem with Yelp is that it feels like a restaurant review app that happens to have a location aspect, rather than a location based app that does restaurants.
Foursquare answers a basic question: what around me is worth doing? (Mainly that is eating for me). Popping up explore this morning gives me a list of interesting coffee shops and breakfast places in my neighborhood. It's truely an awesome feature.
One mistake I think Foursquare made was that their MVP and/or product guidance was too minimal. A lot of my friends have abandoned the product because they didn't see enough initial value. I felt the same thing at first. "I checked-in, now what?" Their social features are only good if you have friends on the service, that are active, AND live in the same area. Their explore, radar, and lists features are awesome, but they came a bit too late and their website is only now catching up to the mobile experience. I also think they still have work to do on the social aspect.
Foursquare is optimized for densely populated urban areas (They are based in NYC), so I'm not sure if it'll reach critical mass like Facebook/Twitter, however, those are still substantial markets. I see it doing very well in Europe.
Yes Foursquare is in trouble much the same way Gowalla was.
Fortunately for Foursquare, they have a much larger audience. A very calculated-yet-subtle pivot could put Foursquare over the top into a category with Google, Facebook and Twitter.
That slight pivot will be a make or break for 4sq though. Gowalla went way off in the wrong direction with their pivot, regardless that they probably would've been acquired anyways.
I do not envy anyone sitting in on the meetings to design 4sq's next step. Then again the high risks involved might give them motivation.
That said, I do know the direction 4sq needs to go.
Checking in on it's own has never been appealing to me. I dismissed 4sq early on as a fad and stupid. However, as a component in a life-streaming service, 4sq fits nicely. Back in the day I used brightkite to give me daily checkin / location data for a bike trip across the US. I've been playing with http://timehop.com/ now and have a reason to use foursquare. How this helps them build a sustainable business, Im not sure.
4sq really suffers outside of the UK because of the lack of engagement from venues. We tried to set up a 4sq Special for an event, and the owner didn't see the point.
For me, the solution/pivot would be to provide a real-time customer database for venue owners. This then can be leveraged to create "real-time social networks"
For example, if I ran a coffee shop I'd want to know my customers as much as possible so they become regulars. Now anything than can create a faster/more informed way to create loyalty and offers seems like a great way in.
Throw in Square/NFC payments etc, and now we start to see a world whereby I turn up sit down, my regular order is brought to me, my 15% discount is applied and I pay without doing a single thing.
The owner has metrics to track the effectiveness of campaigns, it could be the google analytics of retail which is EXACTLY what we need.
Add in some smart POS software and I see some massive wins.
I'm in Europe. I used to use Foursquare but stopped. Reasons:
- No deals (apparently in U.S. stores use this more often).
- Hardly any people use it (I think four of my FB connections use it, but they hardly update it. Facebook is a much better way of letting friends know where I am and it's easy for them to reach back with comment or msg.)
- Locations are double/triple counted (it's very weird, but where do I check in?)
These are just my views, don't know what other users in Europe think.
certainly the experience is very different if you live in, say, New York City, than if you live in Istanbul and sometimes travel to New York City.
Though the 'cool kids' aren't using it, Yelp has basically cloned the 4sq product within it's mobile app (baron instead of mayor...). They come from a very strong position already having all that review content to support it. They seem like more a threat to 4sq than fb is.
I don't use Foursquare, but I think the OP is wrong anyway. Foursquare is a game, people see it as a game, go places, get badges, rack up the check ins, get their stats up. It's like real life RPG crack in a way. From watching others use Foursquare, that's the lure in it that I see. The article completely missed that point.
I used Foursquare, and I never found it more interesting than just a tool to check-in. And I see no value in that, nevertheless, I still felt LBS is a gold mine yet to be properly mined. And I'm determined to solve this problem! Or the problem of trying to trying to find interesting things around you. (Which is by itself a really different problet FS seems to be solving)
And I'm solving it on the very promise that people don't care too much about what strangers around are doing, but would however be way more intrigued to find out what their friends have done in the area.
Here comes in ctrleff! (ctrleff.com :X sorry for shameless plug) I'm a solo founder and things are going really smoothly! I hope to see something launched soon! And naturally, HN will be the first place I'd seek feedback from.
i don't want to flood my facebook friends with checkins everynow and then. That's why i use foursquare.
it is specialized for discovering places and know where your friends are.
foursquare is not a feature, it is an experience. Foursquare is for checkins like instagram is for photos or Google maps for maps. Since facebook has photo sharing,it does not mean instagram is in trouble.
when you are really good at what you do, it does not matter.
Foursquare really matters for cities. in 5 years from now, almost everyone will have a smartphone and people will(already are) start adding more useful digital information to real world places. These informations are going to be their assest. in longterm,foursquare is going to be huge if they execute in the right way.
What I see from my friends is that they use Facebook and Twitter constantly. However every month they pick a new favorite social, local, photo app to play with. One month it is Instagram, next it is Foursquare, then Path. But they don't stick with this 3rd app. They use it merely as a toy that they eventually get bored with and throw away. So yeah, I think Instagram might be in trouble too.
There is a reason only 5% of adults actively use location-based check-in apps. On the whole, foursquare doesn't create enough value for the average adult hence no room in the market for an equal footing competitor (gowalla) http://mashable.com/2011/12/06/adults-use-location-based-app... I think it's easy to get caught up in the fun when you are in an insular, tech-focused group (SXSWi) and every location/person around you is dedicated to using foursquare but at some point you have to stop listening to the "cool kids" hype a product and think about how much you really get out of using it in the real world.
I'm from the UK and have been using 4sq for just over a year. I use it mainly for the gaming aspect between friends (about 4-5 friends, who live in the same area), i also like using it to see what my friends are up to, where they are going/eating/drinking etc.
I think you nailed it perfectly, I think Foursquare is being used mostly as a game. It's fun, and addicting, but it's a "game" it's a "social game", but what it is not is a tie in with all my friends like Facebook, nor a restaurant guide like Yelp. Which is a good thing, as long as Foursquare can recognize how it is being used, and how to capitalize on it before they go belly up. And if it does, oh well, didn't the founders already make $100mil selling their first location based company to Google?
I've used Foursquare for about a year now and I have to say that I agree with his statements.
However, I feel that if anybody is going to eliminate Foursquare, it would be the credit card companies. Reason being, my credit card statement can give you a more accurate picture of where I spend my time and money. And that information is what is important to the "real" customers of Foursquare (i.e. businesses and cities).
We're already seeing this start to happen with American Express. They've partnered with Foursquare and have people link their AmEx card with their Foursquare account to get special deals on certain check-ins.
Is Foursquare in trouble? Of course they are. Checking in is, as this post suggests, merely a feature (of Facebook). When it was rumored that Facebook made a buyout offer my opinion was they should've taken it. Now? The best outcome I see for Foursquare is a talent acquisition.
I wouldn't trust Facebook (or Google places) with my checkins. My Foursquare friends are a select group of people I know well, isolated from other network groups.
Also, what happened to do one thing and do it well?
Yeah, I never really got the value of a service like Foursquare when social networks allowed you to share all of this information already. The checking in feature is clever but at least for me doesn't solve any yet-unsolved problem. (Additionally, I didn't like the idea of publishing my location at various times of the day, but that could just be my own paranoia.)
I think the average user might be looking at Foursquare and thinking, "OK, what else?" They need to provide a good answer to that question.
Isn't this a classic "Crossing the chasm" situation. The early adopters are convinced and evangelize 4Sq, however - there is still some convincing to do for them to win over the early majority. I would not call it trouble, just an interesting challenge...
> Sadly, it lost the battle for my time to TripAdvisor+Lonely Planet when travelling and to Facebook when at home.
Wow, talk about being out of touch. Please don't waste time with either of those two products while traveling. There are others out there like Hipmunk, Kayak and Wikitravel, but it's best to find and converse with fellow travelers once you're reached your destination. They'll have more up-to-date insight and information than any website, never mind a notoriously outdated guidebook. My sympathies regarding the language barrier, but that is hardly a reason to dismiss a product entirely.
And hasn't Facebook basically abandoned check-ins? I cannot dispute that some people will find a product or a service useful while the majority have rejected it entirely, and I respect their choices, but I draw the line at having those people making recommendations of products whose creators have essentially abandoned.
The main reason that I stopped/suspended using Foursquare is because I see it as a game with no winners. It may help some people in ways that it wasn't intended to, but aside from that it provides me with no tangible means of measuring a successful interaction nor does it push me to achieve it.
Bingo with the comment "A Game with no winners". :-).
Actually, I think Facebook integrated location very nicely to their feature set with their latest mobile UI. I don't think they abandoned it at all.
The combination of Tripadvisor+Lonly Planet served me well in my travels. So did Foursquare. But I don't think this alone will make it a viable business.
[+] [-] po|14 years ago|reply
For example, when I lived in NYC I used to enjoy the game aspect and knowing where my friends were. When I moved to Tokyo, these weren't that useful to me. Now I still heavily use the application because I find their venue locations to be more accurate than google maps.
Beware of people predicting doom because it doesn't solve their pet-problem. I can't tell you how many friends I have that initially signed up with twitter, posted 5 or 10 tweets and then went dark for months or years only to become active again. Twitter failed to solve a problem for those users initially. What held twitter through (besides tons of investment money) is a core user group that loved the service as it is today. Foursquare has that.
[+] [-] arnoldwh|14 years ago|reply
1. Virality - Highly viral product that got shared enough to the point that almost everyone knows about it (in current target demographic). Throw up that Mission Accomplished banner.
2. Engagement: Falls off here. Most early adopters got bored, and it's just now catching on with what I would call the "early majority." This would be fine except they're running through the same cycle of being bored by checkins. Reviews/Radar seems like an attempt to engage their users beyond check-ins, which probably seems more confusing than anything else for the typical early majority user. I think the problem here is that they've lost the "core user group" (aka that bored early adopter) you're talking about...the type of people that would spend time curating lists, putting up great content, and getting a kick out of people checking in to their recommendations.
3. Monetization: Nobody seems to care about this anymore, but with their level of funding/valuation, it's probably becoming increasingly difficult to tell them that they're just a few pivots away from making money. However, until they have a clear idea of how people will engage with their product, I'm not so sure they'll know how to monetize. It seems like 4square is pushing towards some sort of CRM system for local merchants, but I don't think I'm smart enough to know the right answer to this one.
[+] [-] patrickod|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adrianwaj|14 years ago|reply
Bitcoin too?
[+] [-] saddino|14 years ago|reply
Which indicates that their focus is too broad to capture a critical mass of users that use it in the same way. I don't think a pivot is necessary, just a focus. They probably have enough $ to figure it out, but IMHO they need to find something soon and stick with it. I suppose "Radar" is supposed to be it, but I don't see it.
[+] [-] kyt|14 years ago|reply
Foursquare answers a basic question: what around me is worth doing? (Mainly that is eating for me). Popping up explore this morning gives me a list of interesting coffee shops and breakfast places in my neighborhood. It's truely an awesome feature.
One mistake I think Foursquare made was that their MVP and/or product guidance was too minimal. A lot of my friends have abandoned the product because they didn't see enough initial value. I felt the same thing at first. "I checked-in, now what?" Their social features are only good if you have friends on the service, that are active, AND live in the same area. Their explore, radar, and lists features are awesome, but they came a bit too late and their website is only now catching up to the mobile experience. I also think they still have work to do on the social aspect.
Foursquare is optimized for densely populated urban areas (They are based in NYC), so I'm not sure if it'll reach critical mass like Facebook/Twitter, however, those are still substantial markets. I see it doing very well in Europe.
[+] [-] oldstrangers|14 years ago|reply
Fortunately for Foursquare, they have a much larger audience. A very calculated-yet-subtle pivot could put Foursquare over the top into a category with Google, Facebook and Twitter.
That slight pivot will be a make or break for 4sq though. Gowalla went way off in the wrong direction with their pivot, regardless that they probably would've been acquired anyways.
I do not envy anyone sitting in on the meetings to design 4sq's next step. Then again the high risks involved might give them motivation.
That said, I do know the direction 4sq needs to go.
[+] [-] yalimkgerger|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sudonim|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fleitz|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matwood|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] foobarbazetc|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] inthecompanyof|14 years ago|reply
For me, the solution/pivot would be to provide a real-time customer database for venue owners. This then can be leveraged to create "real-time social networks"
For example, if I ran a coffee shop I'd want to know my customers as much as possible so they become regulars. Now anything than can create a faster/more informed way to create loyalty and offers seems like a great way in.
Throw in Square/NFC payments etc, and now we start to see a world whereby I turn up sit down, my regular order is brought to me, my 15% discount is applied and I pay without doing a single thing.
The owner has metrics to track the effectiveness of campaigns, it could be the google analytics of retail which is EXACTLY what we need.
Add in some smart POS software and I see some massive wins.
[+] [-] antr|14 years ago|reply
- No deals (apparently in U.S. stores use this more often).
- Hardly any people use it (I think four of my FB connections use it, but they hardly update it. Facebook is a much better way of letting friends know where I am and it's easy for them to reach back with comment or msg.)
- Locations are double/triple counted (it's very weird, but where do I check in?)
These are just my views, don't know what other users in Europe think.
[+] [-] localhost3000|14 years ago|reply
Though the 'cool kids' aren't using it, Yelp has basically cloned the 4sq product within it's mobile app (baron instead of mayor...). They come from a very strong position already having all that review content to support it. They seem like more a threat to 4sq than fb is.
[+] [-] dasil003|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ImprovedSilence|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nubela|14 years ago|reply
And I'm solving it on the very promise that people don't care too much about what strangers around are doing, but would however be way more intrigued to find out what their friends have done in the area.
Here comes in ctrleff! (ctrleff.com :X sorry for shameless plug) I'm a solo founder and things are going really smoothly! I hope to see something launched soon! And naturally, HN will be the first place I'd seek feedback from.
[+] [-] chanon|14 years ago|reply
I think the name is pretty weird though, no idea what it means / refers to.
[+] [-] playhard|14 years ago|reply
i don't want to flood my facebook friends with checkins everynow and then. That's why i use foursquare. it is specialized for discovering places and know where your friends are.
foursquare is not a feature, it is an experience. Foursquare is for checkins like instagram is for photos or Google maps for maps. Since facebook has photo sharing,it does not mean instagram is in trouble. when you are really good at what you do, it does not matter. Foursquare really matters for cities. in 5 years from now, almost everyone will have a smartphone and people will(already are) start adding more useful digital information to real world places. These informations are going to be their assest. in longterm,foursquare is going to be huge if they execute in the right way.
[+] [-] yalimkgerger|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JulianMiller520|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cadab|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ImprovedSilence|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mosjeff|14 years ago|reply
However, I feel that if anybody is going to eliminate Foursquare, it would be the credit card companies. Reason being, my credit card statement can give you a more accurate picture of where I spend my time and money. And that information is what is important to the "real" customers of Foursquare (i.e. businesses and cities).
We're already seeing this start to happen with American Express. They've partnered with Foursquare and have people link their AmEx card with their Foursquare account to get special deals on certain check-ins.
[+] [-] pagehub|14 years ago|reply
There is such huge potential for serious monetisation with local deals, time is running out to really capitalise on that though.
[+] [-] cletus|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aubergene|14 years ago|reply
Also, what happened to do one thing and do it well?
[+] [-] Spoom|14 years ago|reply
I think the average user might be looking at Foursquare and thinking, "OK, what else?" They need to provide a good answer to that question.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] samirahmed|14 years ago|reply
And the need for more utility per unit time, for success in the social domain,
http://youtu.be/BiYNs5uPPEE?t=15m13s
[+] [-] goatcurious|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yalimkgerger|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RandallBrown|14 years ago|reply
FourSquare is missing the facebook part though, so I think facebook could stomp them pretty easily if they wanted to.
[+] [-] AznHisoka|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jsavimbi|14 years ago|reply
Wow, talk about being out of touch. Please don't waste time with either of those two products while traveling. There are others out there like Hipmunk, Kayak and Wikitravel, but it's best to find and converse with fellow travelers once you're reached your destination. They'll have more up-to-date insight and information than any website, never mind a notoriously outdated guidebook. My sympathies regarding the language barrier, but that is hardly a reason to dismiss a product entirely.
And hasn't Facebook basically abandoned check-ins? I cannot dispute that some people will find a product or a service useful while the majority have rejected it entirely, and I respect their choices, but I draw the line at having those people making recommendations of products whose creators have essentially abandoned.
The main reason that I stopped/suspended using Foursquare is because I see it as a game with no winners. It may help some people in ways that it wasn't intended to, but aside from that it provides me with no tangible means of measuring a successful interaction nor does it push me to achieve it.
[+] [-] yalimkgerger|14 years ago|reply