Is Foursquare in trouble?
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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.
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.
Bitcoin too?
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.
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.
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.
If they get the order right they might have a chance to get more funding.
Recently I've seem some of the specials requiring an AMEX credit card linked to my foursquare account, which I feel crosses the "worth it" line.
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.
- 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.
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.
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 think the name is pretty weird though, no idea what it means / refers to.
Actually a clever URL - would non-geeks get it though?
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.
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.
There is such huge potential for serious monetisation with local deals, time is running out to really capitalise on that though.
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.
To Foursquare's credit, they realized that checkins were just a feature and not a business by itself, so they've begun to expand. The problem is that there isn't a clear direction to where they're going. Apps that do a better job of providing reviews will likely win on that front.
I see Foursquare's biggest potential in location based deals. I think that's muddled by their focus on everything else though. So I'd agree that they're in trouble. They aren't doomed, but they need to find their focus quickly or they'll be the next Gowalla.
Also, what happened to do one thing and do it well?
This is an oft-missed point when discussing these tech services. Foursquare is a cool little product that many people find fun and interesting. It's done well, and within that context is fine.
But what's wrong with these companies earning a few hundred grand in profit and maintaining a small, stable company? Instead, VCs throw money at them like it's going out of style, and we lavish the founders with platitudes like they invented electricity or cured cancer. In that context, of course they're in trouble. It's a check-in game for crying out loud. Last I heard, they had a valuation well over half a billion dollars. Really?
So, in reality, they're not doing anything wrong. But our expectations for the next-big-thing are certainly out of whack.
YOU KNOW WHAT'S COOL? A BILLION DOLLARS
> Last I heard, they had a valuation well over half a billion dollars.
Luckily for us, interest rates are unlikely to go up in the next year so we might ride this sucker out for a little longer.
Not really. It may have started that way, and that part may still exist in the application, but that's not why most people use it.
And the need for more utility per unit time, for success in the social domain,
FourSquare is missing the facebook part though, so I think facebook could stomp them pretty easily if they wanted to.
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.