Facebook Places Will Crush Foursquare | Hacker News Reader

Facebook Places Will Crush Foursquare

pcmag.com

32 pointsmcknz25 comments

While I'm no 4sq/gowalla fanboy, to say that Facebook pwns all location based checkins, and "that's a wrap" is a bit premature. Facebook also hosts photos and has made it incredibly easy to upload them, tag them, and share them. However, it is absolutely no replacement for Flickr. Flickr does it better, and continually makes it better.

Foursquare and its contemporaries are very clever on how they get users to use their service. Foursquare has opened up APIs to keep it simple, and their user actions are already syndicated to the Facebook/Twitter. Foursquare has built game and reward mechanics that are genuinely engaging.

My newest startup is in the events/activities space. Facebook also has an events app/module, and it's second rate and barely scratches the surface on both the consumer and provider end of events. I fully plan on leveraging Facebook events to compliment my product. It doesn't have me running for the hills.

This is herd journalism.. the demise of [x] because [Y] has entered the market.

>However, it is absolutely no replacement for Flickr. Flickr does it better, and continually makes it better.

To an extent, you're correct about this. There are large numbers of people for whom Facebook is no replacement for Flickr. However, I, and many others have not posted a picture to Flickr for years (I once had a pro account event), because posting a picture to Facebook seems to be the easiest way to share it with everyone I care about.

But yes, calling the end of Foursquare is a bit premature. It does raise interesting points, however.

I'm always shocked when people on the witness stand recall with crystal clarity what happened on a night two years ago. You know some of that is made up. Facebook Places would certainly take the guesswork out of such things.

The impact of location-based services on the legal system reminds me that the root meaning of "alibi" (in the Latin) is "elsewhere" (from the broad idea of "other there," ibi being the Latin word meaning "there").

This to me is a somewhat creepy reminder that modern technology does not necessarily mean unalloyed progress. With the good comes the bad, and the bad here is a long-term trend by which people can be traced more and more easily in where they are and what they do. In the right hands (true friends), this can be great; in the wrong hands, maybe not so good.

Well said. I wonder how vulnerable this system would be to griefing.

I can just picture people being as annoying about posting your status at places your not as tagging you in collages of their favorite ponies.

Having another proof of location can be useful to defendants in a trial as well as prosecution. It's also useful to be able to say you're not at the scene of the crime. While this could make the effects of bad laws worse by making them more enforceable, if you think the legal system is good as a whole, it doesn't seem obvious why this is not a good thing. It seems we'll be more likely to get verdicts matching the truth.

In February, this same publication declared, "Google's Buzz Puts Facebook, Twitter On Notice": http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2359017,00.asp

I'm detecting a pattern.

The source article's headline is declaring the war already over.

The article (with a tamer headline) you cited is summarized quite well by the author towards the end with this statement "My gut gives it a 50-50 chance". Not exactly the same type of statement as the former.

Yeah, and if it were not to happen they'll write: "Here is how Foursquare resisted the Facebook juggernaut", and there extra profit. grin

You can't even think they are naive: that a small company has beaten a larger one seem to happen quite (more) often in the tech world.

You think that a site named "PC Mag" would have noticed that they survived all the "Internet Crushes Magazines" hype.

People put up with Twitter and Foursqure updates because you choose whom to follow. Facebook relationships are reciprocal so I'll get flooded with Facebook places updates from my aunts going to church even though I'd never actively choose to follow them on a site like Twitter.

It reminds me of the Achewood blog post where Roast Beef relates a conversation with Ray where Ray thinks McDonalds starting to sell fancy coffee will put Starbucks out of business. http://rbeef.blogspot.com/2008/01/mcdonalds-vs-starbucks-vs-...

I'd assume just like Farmville and everything else, with one click you can hide all Facebook Places updates. You just can't pick and chose who to receive which updates from. It's either hide the person or hide the app, not 'hide this app for this person'.

This isn't necessarily the place to bring this up, but I take it I'm not the only one who finds 4sq and pals a bit creepy?

The 'scary' side of social media has long been a favourite topic in the mainstream press - and in this case, I think they might have a mild point. I'm sure that 100% HN users are fully aware of the risks of storing personal info online, and will act accordingly - but so many more web users honestly don't have a clue. I've also heard ad agencies and potential employers talking about tracking 4sq users...and I'm not sure I like that either.

Am I overreacting?

After reading this, I was a little creeped out: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jul/23/foursquare

But my general policy with posting online content is if you put it online, don't be surprised when people find out. I think the ad agencies tracking 4sq check-ins is key to monetizing location based services, and I'm all for it because it just makes sense. When/if this happens, 4sq and others will hopefully be transparent about it, so users know what they're getting into.

But if you don't want people/companies to know where you shop, don't check in. Simple as that.

The utility of location based services has a strong network effect. For finding friends, they need to be on the service. For coupons & deals, business development is far easier with a larger audience.

Interestingly, one way to be ubiquitous is to open up the service as a platform. That means that it makes sense for Facebook to let Foursquare & Gowalla use the platform. Those using Foursquare and feeding into Facebook make Facebook more useful.

It also matters whether location is a way to drive engagement for Facebook, or if they expect deals to be a major revenue driver. I highly doubt even a large effort on local deals and coupons would earn significant revenue for Facebook relative to their astoundingly successful ad system. They aren’t mutually exclusive of course, in that they can have hooks for their ads to leverage places. Ignore for a moment that mobile ads are universally horrible and Facebook doesn’t have any (yet).

This makes me think Foursquare can still grow by being the best place to find deals. From what I’ve seen, Foursquare’s business development is rock solid. Also, Foursquare’s mission isn’t about location based checkins but to make cities more useful. So I think everyone will be just fine.

Maybe, but I'm not sold yet. Yeah Facebook has 500 million plus users, so even if there's a 1% conversion rate they'll have the same or more users than Foursquare. That's huge, especially because Facebook has a much more diverse audience than Foursquare.

But...I can't help but think about Buzz. Gmail had those 170 million users. Sure Twitter was around, but how could Buzz fail when there was this huge existing audience to use it? But today I don't use Buzz at all, and Twitter around a dozen times a day.

Facebook Places has potential, but it's way too early to think Foursquare will be "crushed"

They key difference I think is that Google accounts or gmail accounts were not used as the hub of social interaction (like Facebook) when Google launched Buzz. All the hipsters had built these huge networks on Twitter and Facebook already and now suddenly had to re-assemble a social network from scratch based on their GMail address.

If history was different and everyone used their Gmail account as their social identity, things would have been different as Twitter would have just been a 'feeder' service like 4sq/Go are now.

That's a good point. But I also wouldn't call Facebook my all encompassing social identity. I don't update my status with everything I tweet; I don't even sync up Foursquare and Facebook because I don't want everyone on Facebook knowing where I've checked in (and I don't think I'm alone because 20% of Foursquare users sync up with Facebook). Many people just find it annoying, but the bigger reason is that I'm not really that 'close' with all my Facebook Friends. If I post a check-in to facebook, I'd only want a fraction of the people to know.

I haven't gotten the rollout yet but hopefully Facebook realizes this and makes Places something you can use with some of your friends, and not all of them.

Yishan Wong makes some interesting points:

http://www.quora.com/Are-Foursquare-and-Gowalla-going-to-sur...

This is kinda bad news for Loopt if anything. I was sure facebook would check out Loopt towards sqrt(4^2) before the competition does.

Facebook Places doesn't include many places yet (http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/081910-facebook-places...)

But even if it did ...why would I trust FACEBOOK to be my location app. I enjoy Facebook, but I don't trust it -- I certainly don't want it tracking my whereabouts.

I think its way more likely that if/when twitter launches a location product similar to foursquare that /that/ will do them in. Facebook is for a different type of relationship (at least to me) whereas 4sq/twitter is more selective- Who do I want to follow. I feel that twitter could completely replace 4sq, as their is nearly 100% overlap in that space anyways.

Depends on why people check into places. Is it their daily human need to publish their location? Or is it that they saw a silly idea and decided to have some fun playing along. If the latter, why wouldn't they use 4square for that instead the serious FB?

Checking in, in terms of social interactions, is like a deconstructed form of interacting. I've been thinking about how we've deconstructed personal interactions, and how we've arrived at these one-button-click/automated communiques:

Meeting in person > talking on phone > sending an e-mail > sending an SMS > posting on someone's wall > creating a general friend-syndicated update > [<poke>, <like>, <check-in>]

I can't imagine that is sufficient interaction in the long run.

They said this when Yelp added checkins too. I'll believe it when I see it.

(Foursquare user #657)

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