
Foursquare, Quora, Path: What Becomes Of The Underachievers? - e15ctr0n
http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/28/foursquare-quora-path-what-becomes-of-the-underachievers/
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ilamont
_They have scaled from scrappy outsiders into significant players. They have
millions of faithful users. While it’s true they have succeeded well within
their founders’ wildest dreams, they are still among the best of the best, or
they wouldn’t have gotten to where they are today._

"Scrappy outsiders?" I always felt Path and Quora were overhyped Valley
darlings heavily funded right out of the gate.

As for the comment that they are "still among the best of the best", I think
it's only possible to make that claim on narrow criteria -- for instance,
Quora's Q&A quality in a few verticals, and FourSquare for its check-in data.

~~~
kmfrk
TechCrunch in particular hyped the shit out of Quora, as many of us struggled
to figure out the point of it.

~~~
leorocky
I think the point of Quora was just to get engagement up with whatever it took
to keep people posting and upvoting. It was addicting, but forget getting
answers to questions unless you were one of the sites better known users.
Quora is the Zynga of the Q&A format, and created about as much value.

~~~
_glass
I asked just two questions and they were answered in a really great way by
people much more involved in the topic than I expected. But I am speaking as
someone who grows a slight addiction to Quora. I think the trick is that you
have to engage with the community then you can promote your question with
credits.

* [http://www.quora.com/Linguistics/Is-there-a-theory-of-how-ca...](http://www.quora.com/Linguistics/Is-there-a-theory-of-how-cases-came-into-languages)

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cowholio4
There is so much more to Foursquare than just checkins! It's such an amazing
service; and not for what you may think. It's the best tool to find new,
popular or places that I would like based of things I already like or do.

Not only is Foursquare's recommendation engine great; the lists are awesome.
It's actually been sad to see them gradually make lists less visible. At
least, they still have the TODO list which gives me an easy way to find a
place I have been meaning to go. On the venue profile, they used to feature
the lists that users made containing that venue. So what I would do is find a
place I like and then I could easily find other places based on the list's it
was a member of. It makes traveling so much more fun.

The whole social thing about Foursquare is it's weakest point. I don't know
why they are emphasizing it so much. Firstly, only an extremely small subset
of my friends are on Foursquare and secondly I have enough social networks.

Yes, because of Foursquare I ran into some friends in my neighborhood that I
would not have otherwise. But really that's not nearly as cool as the random
hotel costume party I found that was trending one night. Or the countless
coffee shops, bars and restaurants I discovered while traveling.

So to me the strengths of Foursquare are: * Recommendation engine. * Lists (
TODO and Public Lists ) * International usage. * chance social encounters with
friends.

~~~
TarpitCarnivore
> There is so much more to Foursquare than just checkins!

I argue with friends all the time about how Foursquare is a better tool for
finding and rating establishments than Yelp. The simple like it/dislike it
makes it a much easier way to rate, not to mention they don't allow for long
winded rants much like you see on Yelp. I too also use the Lists feature a
lot, especially when I know I'm going to be traveling to a new area.

Perhaps the bloggers constant referral to Foursquare as a check-in service is
what has kept it from "growing", though they didn't help themselves either by
trying to not highlight the other features more.

~~~
SkyMarshal
I've never used 4SQ b/c I couldn't care less about "checking in", even for
discounts. But I use Yelp all the time, and you guys make a good case for
giving 4SQ another look. A Yelp with pure data, no subjective anecdotes,
opinions, or rants? Sounds interesting.

~~~
potatolicious
Lots of subjective anecdotes in the form of one-sentence "tips" you can leave
at places, but IMO they tend to be a lot more positive than Yelp reviews,
which tend to be disgruntled people kvetching.

Personally the tips are more useful than Yelp reviews. I don't have time or
inclination to read long-form reviews, 4sq tips are much more relevant when
I'm sitting down in a restaurant and figuring out what's especially good on
the menu.

IMO they made a mistake. The Yelp-killer app should've been separated from the
4sq brand, not the other way around. Foursquare is forever known as "the
checkin app", if they really wanted to pivot IMO they should've called it
something else entirely.

~~~
cowholio4
Actually that brings up another thing I really like about Foursquare. You
don't just see tips from random people, page's can also leave tips. I have
learned all sorts of fun facts from tips left by the "History Channel" or
"Food Network".

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ulfw
To me, all three are the modern Myspaces - albeit much smaller and
insignificant in comparison to back then. The brands have been around and
stand for something, which will make it hard to pivot and instill excitement
in the user base. To me, all of the three have lost their raison d'etre.

Quora had a lot of potential, but only a subset of people actively used the
service and formed it into something that won't appeal to the masses.

Foursquare was great for the unique check-in/gamification thing, but after
Facebook made check-in just another feature, there really wasn't a reason to
go to Foursquare anymore. With checkins gone and Yelp being as big and well
established as it is, there is even less reason to go there now.

Path frankly I never thought had any reason to be there in the first place -
no idea how to pivot that thing into anything useful. A "custom-designed, one-
of-a-kind bespoke app" if you will...

------
wpietri
They all make me wonder if money is too loose again. I look at all of them and
ask: did they really need to get to such scale to learn that they had big
issues?

I have the most sympathy for Foursquare, in that their previous incarnation
got purchased and ignored by Google [1], so I can see why Foursquare's
founders just decided to do the same thing over again. But it seems like they
could have noticed these problems 2 or 3 years ago.

Quora and Path, though, have spent an awful lot of money in ways that make me
wonder if they would have done better if they had a lot less cash in the bank,
and thus more need to prove their hypotheses in the small.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodgeball_(service)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodgeball_\(service\))

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digitalzombie
Quora is annoying as hell. You need to log in to see the answers or do
anything. Talked to one of the dev why they do this and he sorta dodge the
question, I got the hint so I left it as is. Quora is useless to me in general
and Stackoverflow is much better.

Path, I've heard of path and I don't care for it. I've moved away from
Facebook and hardly use it anymore. So yeah, the mass migration of Facebook
and other social site is probably a trend.

Foursquare, I admire it a lot. I love the business model and the app is pretty
decent, better than Yelp that's for sure.

~~~
jkbyc
It also does some shady things to increase engagement. I sent a Quora link to
a friend, she created an account to be able to read it and the next day I got
an email from Quora that she followed me (it also said that she is already
following four other people). In reality, she did nothing. She just read the
article, didn't follow anyone.

~~~
smoyer
On June 4th I asked Quora to permanently delete my account. When I started
reading answers there, I don't think you had to "sign up to read" as the front
page now requests (without an account). It's gradually escalated what's
required until I just found it too onerous to participate. I don't want to
share my interests with them and I certainly don't want to share my contacts
list with them.

I'm probably an outlier but I really only found a couple interesting questions
a month, so I don't think I'll miss Quora.

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Choronzon
For those of us outside California Quora seems little more than a silicon
valley circle jerk.A better branded version of the old experts exchange,though
its not hard to brand yourself better than the company with the second worst
url in internet history(I wonder how mole station nursery is doing these
days?). The very the people who have benefited from the internet revolution
move to limit access to publicly provided information,information they
themselves did not even create.Nice job kicking out the ladders from under
you. If I ever get hit on the head and want to live life as some someone
else's virtual pet ill be sure to check out foursquare as well(oh you went to
the pub,who's a good boy?Have a virtual cookie). Stack Overflow does a lot
wrong,half of my favourite answers are marked as closed for some arbitrary
reason but at least it can provide open and accurate answers to questions in
specific problem domains. In the land of the blind the one eyed man is truly
king.

~~~
pestaa
Funny, didn't hear about mole station before. I can only imagine the amount of
confusion.

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fidotron
And of the three only Foursquare got anywhere close to mainstream
conciousness, but failed to convert it. As others have observed, the location
and local information space seems to be a real killer.

Ultimately though they are simply attempts to create get rich quick fads with
no compelling hook for normal people. I think it only puzzles those inside the
bubble that such things don't fly too readily.

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Alex_MJ
I'm still baffled at how everyone considers these startups to be
"underachieving". In terms of becoming the next facebook or twitter? Well, no
shit. That's a borderline impossible standard.

Compared to 95% of their peers (which are, at least statistically, true
underachievers in that they never made it into the mainstream or at least the
tech-mainstream, or didn't survive long enough that we would recognize them
today), they're waaaay on the right side of the bell curve.

Indeed. What a bunch of slackers!

~~~
chippy
Completely agree. Underachieving according to what criteria? The criteria of
modern capitalism of high velocity ever increasing profit for their investors
and shareholders. Not about popularity, sustainability or user base, but
money.

~~~
michaelt
I think they are interpreting pivots as a sign that the founders and/or
investors wanted to change direction, because the previous direction wasn't
succeeding.

I'm all for small, sustainable sites which provide a service and don't try to
monetise too desperately. But when you take $50 million in VC funding, surely
the founders know they're boarding the ten-times-return-or-bust train?

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ryanmim
Quora is the only one of these that interests me primarily because most
answers are posted by people using their actual names. Yeah it's not perfect
and it has a lot of issues, but this is a big selling point for me. There are
advantages to anonymity, but there are also advantages to sticking faces onto
posts. Quora should be the place for the latter, and should play that up more.

~~~
aikah
just my opinion but the login wall totally kills Quora.just saying.Not going
to log into that stuff just to read an answer.

And the UI/UX hasnt been updated for years.Doesnt feel modern.

Just my 2 cents about why i dont use Quora.

Could have been a great tool to build E-Reputation for engineers.

~~~
jqm
Exactly why I have never even visited Quora.

Facebook login required? Forgitaboutit. I've never had a facebook account and
never will (sure, I know you maybe can use another service...but just it isn't
worth my time).

~~~
walterbell
Quora was started by ex-Facebook CTO / VP Eng, who previously lead "Facebook
Platform", i.e. the login requirement now seen at Quora. However, most of the
world moved on.

[http://pando.com/2013/07/23/move-fast-break-things-the-
sad-s...](http://pando.com/2013/07/23/move-fast-break-things-the-sad-story-of-
platform-facebooks-gigantic-missed-opportunity/)

[http://www.crunchbase.com/person/adam-d-
angelo](http://www.crunchbase.com/person/adam-d-angelo)

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uptown
What's Quora's business model? Maybe I'm just missing it, but I don't see any
way for them to make money. No advertising. No premium accounts. Anybody know
their eventual plan for revenue?

~~~
adventured
They have no business model. That's the problem they're facing. They expected
higher growth and higher user numbers. They expected to heavily displace sites
like Answers.com and Yahoo Answers, and that did not happen - both of those
are mainstream, have not lost traffic due to Quora, and Quora has never
managed to go mainstream in terms of scale.

Quora has to abandon the Q&A space as they've known it (aka pivot). There's no
possibility of ever, under any circumstances, justifying a $1 billion
valuation, much less say a $3 billion valuation (which their most recent
investors have to be hoping for at least), in the traditional Q&A space.
Answers.com is three times the size of Quora in terms of traffic, and they're
worth maybe 1/5th what Quora is.

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sparkzilla
My analysis of Quora joining Y Combinator: [http://newslines.org/blog/why-
quora-joined-y-combinator/](http://newslines.org/blog/why-quora-joined-y-
combinator/) Short version: the complete lack of business model forces Quora
to seek out the next stage of investors.

~~~
arfliw
I don't think you understand the type of investors that show up at demo day.
Hint: they aren't writing the 8 and 9 figure checks you think Quora is hoping
they'll write them.

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trhway
they were fads. Variations/customizations in one way or another of a social
networking. The social wave has passed and the crystallization in its wake has
left only options significantly differentiated in parameter space from each
other - FB, Twitter, Snapchat, WhatsApp.

~~~
Domenic_S
I don't know that the social wave has passed, but it does seem like single-
serving social apps are on the way out unless they have a difficult-to-
replicate twist to them (like Secret or whisper).

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ninguem2
Is the actor who played Jango Fett supposed to be the poster boy for
underachievers?

~~~
EdwardDiego
It's not really appropriate, given the movie's content - the main character,
Jake "the Muss", destroyed his family through his alcohol abuse and horrific
violence directed against them (see the film Once Were Warriors). In this
film, he tries to deal with the consequences of what he has wrought.

It's a pretty bleak story, and it has little relevance to "a bunch of
overhyped and heavily investor backed startups didn't pay off."

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natural219
I love reading outsiders flail when trying to understand something like Quora
by thinking in terms of naive, business-as-usual lenses.

~~~
ZenPro
I love it when insiders flail thinking they are rewriting the rules of
business. I also love it when they completely misunderstand the term business-
as-usual.

The opposite of business as usual is a project. A temporary , uncertain
venture with a defined finish point.

By your statement Quora is simply a project, not a business.

Keep up the superior attitude; it's working well for you.

