31–40 of 178 posts
Lots of searches are driven by news stories, including bad news stories. For example the marker D is a story about how Foursquare resorted to raising debt financing to avoid a down round. It's a mistake to label that "SUCCESS".
I'm still astounded by this. They had a #&$%ing verb . That is the #&$%ing gold standard of presence. "I'm going to foursquare this." I actually heard real human beings say this. If your app name has become a verb the last thing you ever want to do is refocus . If you want to go to a ratings app like they apparently did (because... uh... that's not a saturated space or anything?...) then you make another app and leav…
"If your app name has become a verb the last thing you ever want to do is refocus." What? If you don't make money, you will go bankrupt . You can be a verb all you want, if it doesn't make money, it doesn't matter .
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If your monetisation attempt kills your app, you will go bankrupt and it is a failure.
You have two options. One will leave you bankrupt within a year or two with probability 1.0 and one will leave you bankrupt within year or two with probability 0.8. Which would you chose?
This change was poorly thought out and probably wasn't going to be successful, same as if Twitter spun their micro-blogging to another app, it wouldn't end well.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They built something that, while wildly popular for a while, was impossible to monetize successfully. Checkins just don't represent any value to anyone (at least, not that Foursquare could get anyone to pay for). The lesson here is that you can build something amazing and still fail if you can't turn it in to a business.
was impossible to monetize successfully No excuse. If you have a timestamped record of people's interactions with physical businesses and can't find a way to monetize that, sell to one of the thousands of people who can connect those dots pretty easily. And how do you possibly convince yourself that moving into an already-saturated market like ratings is going to help?
If it's as easy as you believe they wouldn't have pivoted. Perhaps they know something you don't. Or perhaps there's still a massive opportunity there. I don't know.
And how do you possibly convince yourself that moving into an already-saturated market like ratings is going to help?
I suspect it's by being wildly successful for a while and believing that you can translate that success in to a market that you can monetize. Plenty of companies make the mistake of thinking success follows you around rather than a pivot being a step backwards as far as your brand goes. Foursquare mistakenly thought that people were fans of Foursquare the brand rather than being fans of the value that Foursquare gave them (eg social validation from having the most checkins). They thought they were a brand like Nike that people do follow from one product to another. They were wrong.
> used but what they once loved about the app was removed.
Well that's just a silly point of view. If you post something to a commercial entity, in general that thing is no longer yours. You gave it to them. No backsies.
Seriously, this is how it has worked for years. Don't feel "betrayed". You chose to use their service, and post reviews on it. On the web, if you don't pay for the hosting, it ain't yours.
> Foursquare's users felt betrayed that their reviews were > used but what they once loved about the app was removed. Well that's just a silly point of view. If you post something to a commercial entity, in general that thing is no longer yours. You gave it to them. No backsies. Seriously, this is how it has worked for years. Don't feel "betrayed". You chose to use their service, and post reviews on it. On the web, i…
Companies like Yelp and Foursquare are actually in the blackmail business. They needed the users to achieve a massive amount of reviews. Now they just collect "protection money" from business to remove / prevent bad reviews and laugh all the way to the bank.
At least, that is the only way I can see their move making any kind of sense.
I'm still astounded by this. They had a #&$%ing verb . That is the #&$%ing gold standard of presence. "I'm going to foursquare this." I actually heard real human beings say this. If your app name has become a verb the last thing you ever want to do is refocus . If you want to go to a ratings app like they apparently did (because... uh... that's not a saturated space or anything?...) then you make another app and leav…
> wildly successful app Foursquare didn't agree. They didn't pivot just because it's the cool thing to do.
Maybe the millions of users actively making check-ins every day weren't too big of a clue for them?
They needed a monetization strategy, you pivot when your product is not being used.