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Graph of Foursquare's Popularity After Removing Check-Ins

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Re: Graph of Foursquare's Popularity After Removing Check-Ins

#81

Post by joshuapants »

briandear wrote: post #44
DevX101 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> wildly successful app Foursquare didn't agree. They didn't pivot just because it's the cool thing to do.

The leadership of Foursquare failed. They had a very popular product but couldn't make anything out of it; hence the pivot. They should have sold the company while the valuations were good. Now, the company is the Mayor of crushed expectations.

Is it really the leadership that failed? Their product was popular, but I can't see any way they could make money on it. I don't think that means the leadership was bad, I think it means the product was inherently un-monetizable.

Re: Graph of Foursquare's Popularity After Removing Check-Ins

#82

Post by jusuchin »

One of the biggest things people seem to miss is the discounts offered by business through Foursqaure if you checked in at the right time or X amount of times. How FSq didn't exploit that or at least leverage that successfully is beyond me. To me, that was one of the coolest features at the time. Check in at so-and-so restaurant, get a free this or that or $2 off. In addition, it made an easy way to see where other people were at downtown at the bars in college.

Re: Graph of Foursquare's Popularity After Removing Check-Ins

#83

Post by nness »

nailer wrote: post #56

From the article: > In attempt to placate frustrated users, Foursquare launched "Swarm," a separate check-in app with minimal features, removing most of what made the original Foursquare app great. " This sentence is provably incorrect. FourSquare launched Swarm before their pivot, there were no 'frustrated users' at that time because their main app still did checkins. The article makes it sound like FourSquare were…

I find that distinction somewhat trivial, I would wager most users shared in my experience, and that was one day Foursquare just stopped doing what they wanted it to do. Regardless of whatever timeline Foursquare followed, there was still one day when it just stopped being what it had been up to that point.

Re: Graph of Foursquare's Popularity After Removing Check-Ins

#84

Post by emodendroket »

untog wrote: post #76
raverbashing wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Foursquare didn't agree 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.

It's funny how everyone in this thread is saying they needed a monetisation strategy but no one has suggested one. Maybe there just isn't a business in check ins.

How about "be acquired by Google."

Re: Graph of Foursquare's Popularity After Removing Check-Ins

#85

Post by emodendroket »

joshuapants wrote: post #81
briandear wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The leadership of Foursquare failed. They had a very popular product but couldn't make anything out of it; hence the pivot. They should have sold the company while the valuations were good. Now, the company is the Mayor of crushed expectations.

Is it really the leadership that failed? Their product was popular, but I can't see any way they could make money on it. I don't think that means the leadership was bad, I think it means the product was inherently un-monetizable.

Well, who came up with this un-monetizable product then?

Re: Graph of Foursquare's Popularity After Removing Check-Ins

#86

Post by emodendroket »

raverbashing wrote: post #61
thefreeman wrote: post #37

The funny thing is, I bet a graph of their profits would be totally different. 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 see this myth being repeated, but it's clear it comes from people not familiar with the platform I've never seen a place with an undeserved good/bad reputation. And I've seen a lot of reviews from those sites (and went to those places) As the number of reviews increase the "I'll never go back to this place" begins to show, but they're compensated by good reviews. Now, systematic bad reviews usually mean there is an…

Travel outside of NYC and SF sometime and you'll see plenty of undeserved reputations in either direction.

Re: Graph of Foursquare's Popularity After Removing Check-Ins

#87

Post by alanmoo »

bandrami wrote: post #9

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…

"Oh, I'll TiVo that!"

And how are they doing?

Re: Graph of Foursquare's Popularity After Removing Check-Ins

#88

Post by emodendroket »

pappyo wrote: post #75
raverbashing wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this myth being repeated, but it's clear it comes from people not familiar with the platform I've never seen a place with an undeserved good/bad reputation. And I've seen a lot of reviews from those sites (and went to those places) As the number of reviews increase the "I'll never go back to this place" begins to show, but they're compensated by good reviews. Now, systematic bad reviews usually mean there is an…

You need to talk to small business owners in any service industry that isn't restauranting. Those owners would consider the business practices of Yelp and (I guess) Foursquare thuggish. Two years ago I sat in on a call with a Yelp rep with a former employer of mine (small business connected to the real estate industry). The Yelp rep said "Advertising through Yelp will almost instantly increase you rating." My employe…

That's the thing; even if it's not true there are almost certainly sales reps going around and saying this (and if it's not true that's almost worse).

Re: Graph of Foursquare's Popularity After Removing Check-Ins

#89

Post by joeshaw »

antonioevans wrote: post #23

They pivoted to become the location data powering major mobile apps (ex. Twitter). Dealing with small business to monetize is hard. You can't charge the consumer because you need the checkin and to get enough of a sales team on the ground in the SMB market is astronomical. If you ask me if they should bring back checkin to core 4sq app, not sure if it's fully relevant anymore. Their new ad platform pretty much just m…

Yes! I can't believe that nobody else has made this point.

I am as disappointed in the pivot of the app as everyone else, but it's hardly the sign of impending death the post (and many of these comments) make it out to be. 4sq built up an incredible points-of-interest database, and that is their real product.

By providing that POI data to other providers -- most notably Twitter -- they get much of the same data that checkins in their own app gave them. And Twitter is massively more popular than the Foursquare/Swarm apps ever was or ever will be.

Re: Graph of Foursquare's Popularity After Removing Check-Ins

#90

Post by mangeletti »

bandrami wrote: post #9

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…

Firstly, when did http://cl.ly/image/192x1c3L3B0d become the model for success?

What it really comes down to is this:

1. You're left with an app that has stagnated in market share for a number of years (even dropped a bit)

2. Your brand has been marginalized by Facebook's vertical integration of your primary feature

3. You have some money left (investment, revenue, whatever - I don't know about Foursquares's finances, but they obviously have some money or they'd be gone)

Given the aforementioned, do you A) pretend like nothing happened and continue watching your brand fade into obscurity (e.g., MySpace), or B) try to reinvent (e.g., like MySpace did - their traffic topped 55M uniques/mo in 2014)?

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