So Long, and Thanks for All the Checkins | Hacker News Reader

So Long, and Thanks for All the Checkins

locationplay.blogspot.com

52 pointsgregrata8 comments

I uninstalled both FourSquare and Swarm a few weeks ago. I was one of those "check-in everywhere I go" types for years. I enjoyed the gamification aspect of it (mayorships/badges) and the historical record of where I've been (both in the context of it telling me I've been at a place X weeks in a row or looking at when was the last time I was at X?)

Swarm took all the fun out of the whole check-in concept. [I can see how Swarm might be appealing to people who have a lot of friends in a close geographic area that also use the app...but I am not one of those people].

Foursquare was the only social-networking-y app I used. It provided a valuable service to me, namely 'remembering where I've been' which my brain is bad at. Then they decided to change everything and now I don't use it anymore.

Is there some alternative that lets me check in places (that isn't Facebook)?

I tried swarm, but the whole global-checkins thing was killed, it's now mayorships between friends only, and I don't care about that. All the useful functions were moved to swarm and neutered, so I just uninstalled them both. Also a nearly 5 year user. I wish them the best, but it's useless to me now.

A really sad, odd thing for them to do - I guess they realized they were never going to make money at the old app, and decided to do the new? Wonder how that is going to go, if they lose their user base (that they are replying on to generate new content).

I haven't uninstalled it yet but I've hated swarm and the new foursquare since it re-launched. I'm user #85,437 and have been using to check into absolutely everything since I got my first android phone, the Nexus One in March 2010. I've given them 4 1/2 years of data that I don't want to lose, but I don't want to keep using it anymore unless they put back the old features. For example someone asked me how many times I checked my local Dunkin Donuts the other day, a question foursquare used to easily answer, and after 10 mins of checking everywhere I couldn't find the answer!

I challenge someone to make a clone of core original foursquare features and allow us to import our foursquare data. I'll use your app and help promote it. :)

Unrelated, but I am curious: why do you have the phone app on your dock, and the contacts app on your home screen? I would like to know the motivation behind this, because the contacts app is embedded in the phone app.

LOL

I should really just move contacts to the bottom. I don't use my iPhone as a phone very often (mostly use it to listen to voicemail). I DO bring up contacts more often, to get addresses, notes, etc - so like being about to just go directly to contacts, instead of opening up the phone and clicking on contacts.

It must be a generational thing. I've never been interested in being "mayor" of anywhere. Plus it could be creepy. The following video [1] comes to mind. This hot psycho chick is "mayor of Brad's closet".

Shhh. I still use email. Oh, and get off my lawn!

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpV7DyM4Zk0

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