
Foursquare Raises $35M More, Says It Has 45M Registered Users - jayzee
http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/19/foursquare-series0d/
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uptown
Foursquare has served different purposes to-me over its evolution. Initially
it was fun for the gamification aspect. I used it more than any other time.
That eventually grew old, along with the privacy sacrificed in exchange for
negligible returned value. Then, I used it to receive sponsored discounts.
This was only an occasional use-case, but if you shopped at a store, and had
your AMEX synced with Foursquare, you got a discount. AMEX seemed to take that
concept over and now provides discounts for using your cards without needing
to check-in, so that use-case disappeared. Now - I use it extremely rarely as
a substitute for what something like Yelp does. I no-longer check-in, and
rarely use the app. Some of my friends still religiously check-in ... and I
guess it's neat to see those popup ... but I'm not sure how they monetize
their 45 million registered users if their usage trend resembles anything
similar to my own.

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skillcode
There is a reason behind them not mentioning the amount of active users.

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alttab
A couple hundred thousand, maybe.

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stevenj
Surprised to see that it has now raised a total of $106 million.

[http://www.crunchbase.com/company/foursquare](http://www.crunchbase.com/company/foursquare)

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meowface
They've been around for almost 5 years now, so it's not too surprising. Not
like they're a brand new startup.

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mathattack
They're also into mining some of the "data exhaust". Monetizing this turns
them into something much bigger than a social checkin company.

Here's a presentation given at Data Driven New York.
[http://vimeo.com/79911529](http://vimeo.com/79911529)

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yid
> They're also into mining some of the "data exhaust". Monetizing this turns
> them into something much bigger than a social checkin company.

Location data changes very quickly: new places open and close, popularity
waxes and wanes, and demographics of neighborhoods change unpredictably.
Foursquare's location data is only as good as its freshness, so without a
large pool of active users, there is no "data exhaust".

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mathattack
This is and, not or.

But it did sound like check in growth was tapering.

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kentosi
Slightly frustrated Foresquare user here. I'm a little confused about its
usage and was wondering if some of the more avid users here could clarify a
few things for me.

When I go to a restaurant, I have 3 separate actions that occur at 3 different
times during my meal: 1 - Upon entering a restaurant, I want to "check in". 2
- When I get my meal, and it looks great, I want to post a photo. 3 - When I'm
done eating, I want to leave a rating and a comment.

It seems that Foresquare's check-in is a one-time only action. I can't
"update" my checkin in its various stages.

I don't use it as a social app as it's intended (since none of my friends use
it here in Sydney). I use it as a tool to discover and rate restaurants.

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eigenvector
You can update your check-in. If you simply check-in to the same location (but
with a photo, comment, etc), it will automatically merge with and update your
previous checkin.

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adrianwaj
Can 4sq help track where taxis are? Or even just friends or people on their
way to meet you? That'd be killer. Combine that with cryptocoin payments and
you'd have something that could compete with Uber or some taxi apps.

Would be good if it could predict meeting times.. how long for A,B,C to meet
with D according to certain parameters (time of day, mode of transport)? .. C
has lowest travel time. How long for A to get from point 1 to point 2? What's
the probability of A being close to point 3 in the next week according to
prior travel? How close? When is best time to go from A to B this week?

Also tracking fleets of cars/trucks.. create logistics apps, track travel
times, optimal routes.

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jbensamo
try an app called Twist

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mbesto
Anyone know if they have made any real money yet?

Note - From this deck[1] it looks like their "mobile mass market mom" (female
25-54) could potentially be the breadwinner. I desperately want to start a
company that serves this market - loads of disposable income, time, and
actively social.

[1]-[http://www.businessinsider.com/leaked-pitch-deck-reveals-
exa...](http://www.businessinsider.com/leaked-pitch-deck-reveals-exactly-how-
foursquare-plans-to-make-money-2013-4)

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ParkerK
They're starting to make moves to. They recently overhauled the app to make it
a lot less fun and social, and it has more ads now and the focus seems to have
changed form fun to a yelp alternative, as others have pointed out.

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jarjoura
hooray! So happy to see them make it this far, great job guys! Every iteration
has been getting better and better.

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frostli
any clue how many active users monthly?

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rfnslyr
I've literally never heard of foursquare in real life. Nobody I know uses it
or has used it.

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ajaymehta
Do you live in an urban area? Foursquare has been commonly talked about by the
non-tech-savvy people I know for years now. I'd actually say moreso than any
social service other than Twitter and Facebook, over the past 3-4 years.

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Diamons
I'm a 20 year old attending college in NYC. FourSquare is considered a running
joke, like LinkedIn.

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possibilistic
When you graduate, there's a possibility that LinkedIn may not still be
considered a joke, for better or worse.

