

What if Foursquare launched in 2004? The story of Meetro. - twidlit
http://meetro.lefora.com/2008/05/21/meetro-post-mortem/

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cloudwalking
Another problem that the author neglects to mention is that Meetro didn't
really seem to solve any specific problem.

Foursquare is so successful for two reasons. It's a game, so people _want_ to
check in and leave their mark (solving the persistence problem he mentions).
They're solving a problem by providing entertainment. I'm not seeing this as
much in Meetro. Second, everybody has smart phones now. Foursquare succeeds
where Dodgeball fails because _anybody_ can participate, with almost no
effort.

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jamesshamenski
Very cool blog post from 2008!

Right there at the very end in point #3 he ponders the option that just turned
into a $80-100m valuation. He was thinking of the idea but didn't have the
social proof from the cool kids.

Not being able to pivot to the right model and timeliness seem to be what went
wrong.

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twidlit
yep, the lack of mass market GPS device (iphone) was what killed Meetro more
than anything, IMHO. The game mechanic of 4square is an inspired feature that
endeared it to early adopters.

