

Check-Ins are Coupons. Game Mechanics are Bullshit. - zpoley
http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2010/04/checkins-are-coupons.html

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jkincaid
Foursquare's game mechanics do get old, and they really haven't done much to
change them since launch. I started playing Foursquare in March '09, was sick
of the badges a month or two later, and haven't cared to check in much since.

Granted, I know plenty of people who still play Foursquare religiously, but I
suspect they'll burn out on the gameplay too eventually. It's very hard to
keep a game engaging over multiple years. I have nothing against Foursquare, I
just hope they have some plans to mix things up.

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hristov
Dude, I know it feels like you are writing is brilliant when you are high on
coke, but believe me it is just a bunch of incomprehensible drivel.

~~~
davemc500hats
nah, i stopped doing the coke in college.. believe me crawling on the carpet
looking for crack is really no fun.

regardless, i appreciate that u despise me enough to waste time commenting on
my "incomprehensible drivel".

i'll translate 4 u: "LBS services cost money to scale."

got it?

(i can type slower if that helps)

~~~
Qu4Z
I doubt slower typing would help, but some capitals, consistent punctuation
and less use of random colours and font resizing on your blog would go a long
way towards making your point in an understandable way.

I'm sure that post has interesting content, but so do many others, and they
make their points in a much more readable way: for instance, try looking at
the essays on paulgraham.com. A pleasure to read, and think about.

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lrm242
Dave's writing usually rubs me the wrong way, but this piece makes a ton of
sense. Facebook has shown that they can execute well as the market changes so
I suspect they will try to buy something, but will not pay the valuations most
VCs expect.

~~~
lsc
yeah, is this guy serious? Not that I have much room to criticize others on
grammar, but I don't spell you as 'u' - I was almost expecting to see 'Sent
from my iphone' at the bottom of the story.

~~~
davemc500hats
sorry about the lack of spelling or grammer [sic].

i'm an acquired [dis-]taste...

~~~
shadowsun7
Hi Dave,

Your comments on HN are clear, simply written, and to-the-point. When you
defend your arguments here, you make perfect sense. I'm not sure why you write
the way you do on your blog. Could it be that you're just looking for
attention/linkbait?

Please, stop. You're famous enough in startup circles to be able to run on the
strength of your ideas alone. I think people here are beginning to realize
that - once we parse through your language we'll find some fantastic ideas.
There are many more people who can't/won't get past the parsing (for instance,
while I like your ideas, you're not in my feedreader). There's no reason not
to write simply, and clearly, the way you write on HN now.

Right?

~~~
davemc500hats
thanks for the kind words. (i think?)

but really... i'm not trying to write for fame & fortune, i'm just having fun.
(ok, yeah i'm pretty sure it's also somewhat effective but honestly i do it as
much for personal enjoyment as for public linkbaiting)

anyway, i appreciate the more straightforward way that folks like PG, Chris
Dixon, and Fred Wilson write (all are among my favorites), but it just isn't
quite my thing.

apologies if i end up seeming a bit off the wall.

maybe we can clear it up over a beer sometime.

cheers,

~~~
shadowsun7
Well I never - there's a good man behind that personality, after all. =)

Alright, Dave, fair enough. I don't necessarily like the way you write, but
I'm convinced enough to subscribe to you. Best of luck in your future writing.

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dannyr
Lately, a number of my friends who are non-early adopters started signing up
for Foursquare. Do they check-in? No.

I bet the only reason they signed up was because of the coverage by the
mainstream media which picked up the hype from blogs like Techcrunch (or more
specifically MG Siegler).

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dshah
Those are some awfully strong opinions.

And, makes <http://foursquare.grader.com> look kind of silly. Oh well, at
least I had a good time with it and you just never know.

~~~
davemc500hats
yeah, i'm probably smoking something on those predictions, but blodget seemed
to enjoy the speculation ;)

~~~
dshah
I didn't say they were _wrong_ opinions, just that they were strong.

You made some good points. My one counter-argument is that folks would have
likely argued similar things about twitter back when it first launched.
Tiwtter was basically Facebook status updates -- only different.

~~~
davemc500hats
true, but twitter growth was notably substantial even before people understood
why it was diff than FB status.

not sure the popular LBS stuff is growing anywhere near as fast... but it
should be.

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kadavy
His prediction about Google buying Twitter and Yelp to take on Facebook made
me laugh. Until he said they will "probably still [lose] due to no clue on
social"

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kullar
when we started our location based site launching soon :), we researched
current and future competitors: key points we came out with: 1\. Facebook
absolutely will launch a friend finder (although they'll have privacy problems
and they'll have to be careful) so most friend finders will get crushed. 2\.
most current sites are confusing- don't actually understand what they do
within 10 to 30 seconds of looking at the site. Often they do too much that
people care minimally about 3\. Most location based sites have missed out on
some very basic needs that people have. Many seem to be built by hard geeks
for other hard geeks. Go out and talk to mainstream users, they just are like
wtf? So dave has said what most people may have thought but were not willing
to say because of what i think of as the 'twitter' effect'. Its the 'well, it
could be another twitter, just that i don't get it yet' thought.

However, the one advantage foursquare etc have got over some poor muppet like
me with my $6,000 dollar savings invested in our idea is lots of money and an
existing infrastructure. That said, these days, its amazing what you can do
with $6,000.

~~~
kullar
$6,000 dollars and blood, sweat and tears that is

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thiele
Totally agree, Facebook will win location war hands down.

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oldgregg
Pretty interesting predictions, very thought provoking at least.

