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Leaked Pitch Deck Reveals How Foursquare Plans To Make Money

39 points| kschua | 13 years ago |au.businessinsider.com | reply

14 comments

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[+] coloneltcb|13 years ago|reply
Sad that this was deck was leaked on ValleyWag on Monday, but because Gawker is blacklisted from HN, it didn't make the front page until a crappy re-blog from BusinessInsider came out.

I think HN is way too aggressive in banning domains (or at least not transparent enough about which are banned and why).

For instance, I submitted this really interesting piece today on Buzzfeed's FWD tech vertical: http://www.buzzfeed.com/joshmiller/fwdus-breaks-its-first-pr...

Because Buzzfeed is (apparently) banned, the link was autokilled as soon as I hit submit.

I really don't mind that HN is curated--that's part of what makes it so good. But the lack of transparency seems almost like they are saying "Don't worry, just trust us, we know what's best for you."

[+] sneak|13 years ago|reply
I didn't know that Gawker was banned from HN. Was a reason given, or can one be reasonably inferred?
[+] jebeng|13 years ago|reply
Honestly, it's probably worth it. Even if we are a little late on some news sometimes.
[+] DigitalSea|13 years ago|reply
It was bound to happen and showing targeted ads when people check-in is a no brainer. The issue Foursquare has is retaining the user base. I was an avid user for the better part of a year and then it just got tiring, it became a chore to check-in places and Facebook already had a similar feature. The badges aspect is cool, but the badges mean nothing and most of my friends stopped using Foursquare after a couple of months so there was no one to brag to and another issue is that people would cheat check-ins. I was competing for a local store that I would visit every morning and caught someone out checking in to the store when it wasn't even open and no, they didn't work there.

Does Foursquare still have a large user-base left to monetise?

[+] hkmurakami|13 years ago|reply
It seems to still be popular it the tech early adopter crowd in Japan at least. I think they can make decent money just from Tokyo.

Also, their reputation for having the best "what's good to eat here" feature quality in a really strong weapon to have.

[+] habosa|13 years ago|reply
Is Foursquare really only bringing in $2M a year? Is that revenue or profit? Either way that's not a lot for a company that I'd consider to be in the "Big 7" of social networks (FB, Twitter, G+, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Foursquare). I mean that's certainly a lot of money in absolute terms but FB is bringing in billions a quarter. Also I've been to Foursquare's office in NYC and it's very, very nice. I would have a hard time believing a company barely getting by would invest in a place like that.

Maybe that's a misquoted figure?

[+] clobber|13 years ago|reply
> only bringing in $2M a year

Surprise, surprise. Startup burning through venture capital while actual 'revenue' is smoke and mirrors. We've seen this movie before.

[+] InclinedPlane|13 years ago|reply
Seems a bit late for them to be figuring out how to make money.