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Facebook buys Gowalla

money.cnn.com

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Re: Facebook buys Gowalla

#52

Post by seltzered_ »

stevenp wrote: post #45
harryh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A) They haven't really been a competitor for a long time. Once you're beating someone by a factor of over 100:1 you move on to other things. B) Facebook isn't buying the product (they don't care about the product). They're just hiring a couple of engineers/designers/product folks.

The fact that foursquare was beating Gowalla 100:1 is proof that you don't have to have a better, more fun-to-use, better designed product in order to win in the market. My love affair with Gowalla was prematurely extinguished when they pivoted to local guides, but I hope that this acquisition means that they'll bring some of their original magic to Facebook.

my reaction was the exact opposite. I hate being with friends constantly checking in everywhere on their phones when I want to hang out with them, but still like writing reviews & helping others find good places to go. The gowalla pivot seemed to work towards that.

Re: Facebook buys Gowalla

#55

Post by pmf »

stevenp wrote: post #45
harryh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A) They haven't really been a competitor for a long time. Once you're beating someone by a factor of over 100:1 you move on to other things. B) Facebook isn't buying the product (they don't care about the product). They're just hiring a couple of engineers/designers/product folks.

The fact that foursquare was beating Gowalla 100:1 is proof that you don't have to have a better, more fun-to-use, better designed product in order to win in the market. My love affair with Gowalla was prematurely extinguished when they pivoted to local guides, but I hope that this acquisition means that they'll bring some of their original magic to Facebook.

That fact is 100% right. As a designer Im aware that design won't save the world. Foursquare had a huge moat since ever, and thats all that they need.

Re: Facebook buys Gowalla

#56

Post by MatthewPhillips »

stevenp wrote: post #45
harryh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A) They haven't really been a competitor for a long time. Once you're beating someone by a factor of over 100:1 you move on to other things. B) Facebook isn't buying the product (they don't care about the product). They're just hiring a couple of engineers/designers/product folks.

The fact that foursquare was beating Gowalla 100:1 is proof that you don't have to have a better, more fun-to-use, better designed product in order to win in the market. My love affair with Gowalla was prematurely extinguished when they pivoted to local guides, but I hope that this acquisition means that they'll bring some of their original magic to Facebook.

Maybe on iPhone. On Android and WP7 Foursquare has been better designed for a long time.

Re: Facebook buys Gowalla

#58

Post by oldstrangers »

pmf wrote: post #49

Facebook has now the best design team in the valley. Hands down. Gowalla plus Made by Sofa plus Push Pop Press

Facebook does have a solid design team, but I wonder where all that talent is being directed? Visually, their hires in the past year or so haven't made an impact with facebook.com. At least with Google's new design team, you can see what they're doing.

So, one has to ask, what are these people working on? A facebook phone? Facebook X.0?

Re: Facebook buys Gowalla

#59

Post by AznHisoka »

harryh wrote: post #44
brk wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's understandable that you don't consider them a competitor, but who is? Most people tend to agree that it is not good to have NO competitors. Go walls was in some ways a kind of straw an against Foursquare. You had someone to be "100:1" against. Now who is your competitor? I would not call this inconsequential because it can also be interpreted as the non-viability of check-in sites as a distinct business. I appre…

I'm not here to convince anyone of anything. You asked a question, and I answered. Just trying to be helpful. To answer your question about who our competitor is, it's the same as it's always been (and always will be): the back button. Our job, as pg says, is to build something people want. We started by building checkins and attracted millions of users doing that, now we're moving on to building the best social city…

foursquare's competitor is other mobile 'time wasters'. I mean that in a good way, not bad way. so facebook, twitter, instagram, etc are all competitors.

if you want to talk about check-ins.. check-ins are commodity, i'm sure foursquare knows this. noone says "hmm.. what app to check in??? hmm what competitors to try?" they go "hmm.. what's interesting and fun way to show off and impress others while i'm here in this restaurant? facebook? foursquare? foodspotting?"

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