
A brand new Foursquare, with a brand new logo and look - uptown
http://blog.foursquare.com/post/92636287198/a-brand-new-foursquare-with-a-brand-new-logo-and-look
======
gdilla
I was so puzzled why a company like Foursquare, which if they didn't invent
the check-in, brought it to our lives, and associated their brand with it,
completely removed it from their flagship eponymous app and put in a new one
called Swarm (which also has its own major annoyances). Shouldn't have this
been the other way around? Foursquare is associated with checkins. Now you're
trying to transform "Foursquare" into a smarter Yelp? I'm sure it can be a
competitive service, but confusing your 100MM strong user base with these
changes isn't going to help.

~~~
smacktoward
_> I was so puzzled why a company like Foursquare, which if they didn't invent
the check-in, brought it to our lives, and associated their brand with it,
completely removed it from their flagship eponymous app_

It's because check-ins don't work. After the novelty wears off, nobody wants
to check in. Nobody. Like those stupid plastic awareness bracelets, check-ins
were a fad that flared briefly and is now completely, 100% over.

So if you're a company whose entire product identity was based on check-ins,
you have two choices:

1) Come up with something, anything else that can be plausibly jammed into
your app, and run with that; or

2) Go out of business.

Unsurprisingly they went with #1, even if from the perspective of retaining
some shred of dignity #2 would have been the better choice.

~~~
drstewart
I know a ton of people in the Bay Area that actively check-in. Please speak
for your own experience.

~~~
smacktoward
You may not be aware of this, but the Bay Area is not exactly a representative
sample of Mass Market Behavior.

But that doesn't really matter, because we can resolve the dispute with a
simple question: if check-ins were a mass-market thing, would Foursquare (and
everyone else who tried them, like Facebook) be running away from them?

The answer is no, obviously. If they worked, companies would be piling in, not
checking out. But they don't, so they are.

~~~
baddox
> the Bay Area is not exactly a representative sample of Mass Market Behavior.

No, it's not. But neither is

> After the novelty wears off, nobody wants to check in. Nobody. Like those
> stupid plastic awareness bracelets, check-ins were a fad that flared briefly
> and is now completely, 100% over.

------
uniclaude
I'm quite surprised to see the amount of negative feedback here.

I find the new logo quite good looking and communicative, and this "new"
Foursquare app is finally something I can see myself using. I have absolutely
no interest in the whole check-in thing, but I'm not against good
recommendations, so there's a good chance I'll be in the target market for
this app, and I suspect I'm not alone in this case.

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canistr
The problem with Foursquare is that it was clearly designed by New Yorkers. In
other cities where the distance and density of businesses/restaurants/etc. are
much lower, the results aren’t as good. The only times where I’ve had a good
Foursquare recommendation experience is when I was in Manhattan or in North
Beach of San Francisco. Other places, the results just plain suck. In suburbs
or midtowns, it isn’t good because the “local recommendations” are a little
too small and give me results of places I have no intention of ever going to.
Other times, it increases the range to a radius that is far too big.

~~~
jedc
I've had the opposite experience.

I was in Zagreb, Croatia for the very first time last year and wanted to eat
dinner somewhere other than my hotel. I tried Google Maps and it was
worthless. I pulled out Foursquare and found a restaurant a few streets away
that turned out to be _incredible_! (So much so that when I went back a few
months later I went back to the same place instead of exploring.)

And now that I mention it, same thing happened to me in Tallinn, Estonia, too.
Found a great brew-pub-ish restaurant that I would have never found on my own.
And again, went back a few months later on my next trip.

~~~
schrodinger
I was in Costa Rica looking for somewhere to go for dinner and drinks. Yelp
had NOTHING. Foursquare found me an awesome new restaurant/bar a few minutes
away that we loved.

I kind of assumed from this experience that Foursquare has better adoption in
some areas of the world, but I'm not sure.

~~~
thanatropism
I don't think Yelp is even a thing here.

You want to look at the websites for newspapers and the like. Rio Show, Veja
Rio, etc.

------
uptown
I'm sure they have data that says otherwise, but unbundling seems like a
mistake. You've got a brand that's still not terribly well-known, and you're
fragmenting it further. Demote check-ins if it's not the primary-use for most
users ... but keep it as one app. I like their recommendations, and I hope
they prove me wrong because it's great data that I'd hate to see lost or
simply acquired and absorbed by a 3rd party.

~~~
ssmoot
After looking at this post, I kinda want to try out Foursquare as a Yelp
alternative. I've never signed up for Foursquare before. So that seems
significant.

But two apps? Why? Granted I don't check-in on Yelp very often. But if I feel
like it, and it wasn't integrated, I'd _never_ do it. It's a missing but
seemingly trivial feature for the main Foursquare app and puts me off a bit.

Enough that I probably won't bother with it.

The whole idea feels incredibly poorly thought out if they were looking for
conquest usershare from Yelp.

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neona
I have to say, splitting things up makes me think of the whole Netflix-
Qwikster thing - pointless brand splitting that does little more than confuse
and frustrate consumers.

I do like the new logo though.

~~~
untog
The intention was to branch off Qwikster and have it slowly die. I actually
think it wasn't an awful idea, but that they did it too early. With a terrible
name.

I suspect Foursquare want to slowly kill off checkins in a similar way.

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JamesBaxter
I think they've really alienated a lot of their users with the app move look
at the reviews of Swarm
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.foursquare...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.foursquare.robin&hl=en)

Do the app stores need to get better at transferring users between apps for
situations like this?

~~~
onewaystreet
A lot of startups make the mistake of doing nothing that will anger their
current base of users, but that is not how you grow a company. Facebook is a
good example. Almost every move they have made has angered their current users
but ended up growing the company (opening up the site to everyone, adding the
news feed, etc.).

~~~
UweSchmidt
Nice perspective.

Personally, I don't want to feel like I'm part of a "userbase", to be
"transferred between apps" when convenient.

I guess all that anger and disappointment users express (no matter if they
stay like with FB or leave) is due to the fact that they expect someone on the
other end who built the app out of passion and maintains it as a service to
the community.

How am I supposed to become a loyal user/customer, invite my friends to that
service and provide all that data if it's all subject to some corporate
strategy, if any middle manager can shut it down if the metrics aren't going
up?

------
natch
Though I don't use it often, I feel an uncannily strong sense of good will
toward Foursquare and the company. Probably because they pioneered this stuff.
And because of their other company before Foursquare, Dodgeball, which Google
bought and lame-ified. I met the team once for two seconds at a conference and
they were really sweet happy people.

------
bellerocky
It's kind of amazing that this company is still around. They got way more
money than they knew what to do with at a way too high of a valuation, the
result being this highly polished zombie vestige of a previous era that is too
expensive to buy, has too much money to die, and whimpers along with some kind
of undefined shrinking user base. It's like a smaller, never IPO'ed version of
Yahoo. I don't know how this story is going to end, but I doubt it will
involve more people having any of their apps on their phone tomorrow than
today, at least willingly. I could see some kind of carrier deal that extends
the pain until finally they fall into the arms of a remnant brand hoarding
corporation like IAC for pennies.

------
wilsynet
If Foursquare had been bought by FB, Google, Yahoo a few years ago when it had
peaked, and then a few years later numbers were down, and engagement became
sparse, the parent company would have either de-invested or shut it down.

And then there would have been a slew of articles and criticism about how once
again a big company has squandered an opportunity.

Instead we get to see what really happens when the founding team executes a
pivot on what is already a pretty successful product and service that has not
yet fulfilled the Yelp sized aspirations of its founders, investors and
employees.

------
vii
Foursquare had great usage all over the world. I've traveled widely (more than
ninety countries) and all over Latin America and Eastern Europe Foursquare is
regularly used. For some reason, it got a lot of hate from the Bay Area tech
crowd who felt its heyday passed -- despite the fact that SF airport was
always swarming.

The pressure to keep on growing and have viral growth and turn into a
destination app means that app like Foursquare with less mainstream
gamifications sadly don't get the respect they maybe deserve, and are forced
to try to go viral, etc. which is not a natural path for every app, and there
should be a way to fund and let these apps achieve their natural success.

Foursquare location data was great (used by Uber) and it's sad they're
alienating the users who provided them this value.

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sandy12
So if I've never used Foursquare before, which do I install? I'm not
interested in having any friends on the app I just think the reviews, and
customised recommendations could be quite useful.

~~~
nathos
Foursquare is the one you want then. Swarm is where the check-ins, friend-
finder, and plan-making functionality is.

------
wylie
Foursquare has been promising this since the beginning, it's why I keep using
it and checking in. Hoping this lives up to the promise, since their current
recommendations are pretty static.

------
Major_Grooves
What I don't understand, is that they say they use the super-data from these
50 Million people to give personal recommendations in the new Foursquare app.

Now I presume they want to broaden the appeal of Foursquare beyond those
people that like check-ins, but does that now mean that the check-ins from
Swarm continue to power the recommendations in Foursquare? Is it relevant to
use the data from early-adopter-types for an app that is meant to have mass
appeal?

~~~
achompas
They'll almost certainly use the Swarm data to generate recommendations, but
there are other non-check-in features to consider (likes, reviews, review
sentiment come to mind).

EDIT: Looks like location data as well.

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lnanek2
I kind of liked Foursquare. I don't like the looks of Swarm. And I'm kind of
pissed they bug me constantly to install it. I guess they want to kick out the
old Foursquare users and make it into a Yelp competitor or something. Haven't
really decided what to do. They are taking away my check in functionality so
maybe I'll just uninstall it. Why should I go install some new app for what
I've always been using.

------
ghobs91
If it can get very smart about the recommendations it makes, when it makes
them, and how frequently, it will become a big part of peoples social lives.

I envision an experience where it knows my friends and I are in a new city
together, and because it's early evening, we're probably trying to figure out
where to go out for the night.

Bam, notification letting me know the best nightlife spots based on my
preferences and those of my friends.

------
qeorge
I first heard of foursquare from Fred Wilson, who described getting a
recommendation on a specific dish off the menu via a friend through
Foursquare.

That was so COOL! Much cooler than "personalized local search". Maybe they
could go back to that? I can get recommendations for just a _restaurant_ from
lots of apps, but "go to this restaurant and order this dish" is currently
underserved, and more useful.

~~~
chipotle_coyote
Doesn't Yelp do a reasonably good job of this? I've certainly gotten
recommendations from both tips and its "frequently talked about" algorithm
(i.e., "carnitas" shows up a lot in reviews of this taqueria).

~~~
qeorge
Sounds like it does! I haven't used the Yelp app in a long time. Glad they
added tips.

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bckrasnow
I hate the new logo with a passion. Why keep the place icon in the bottom on
of the F and have the swirl behind it if the whole point of this was to take
check-in's out of the app? It's saying you're doing one thing and then doing
the opposite of that thing.

------
jagermo
And, of course, no love for BlackBerry OS 10. Foursquare had a great native
integration and now just dumps all BB-Users. Why do companies do that?

------
ddp
This seems like something akin to a desperation move by a company that's
floundering, er, pivoting, er, failing?

------
dude_abides
Team FourSquare (if you're reading this), please ask yourself this question:

If "x" is how much better Facebook was than MySpace, or how much better Google
was than Yahoo search, then "x" is how much better you need to be than Yelp to
beat Yelp.

Right now, it is debatable if you are even just better than Yelp.

~~~
debt
Foursquare doesn't hold a candle to Yelp. I can order food, make a reservation
and figure out what's going on in my neighborhood with Yelp. Foursquare has a
new logo.

~~~
achompas
I disagree. Yelp's reviews are needlessly verbose and possibly gamed or
filtered according to the store's affiliation with Yelp. I don't have the same
concerns re: 4sq reviews.

~~~
debt
Then why does Yelp itself only have 2 1/2 stars on _Yelp_? Couldn't they just
game their own name?

[1][http://www.yelp.com/biz/yelp-san-francisco](http://www.yelp.com/biz/yelp-
san-francisco)

~~~
achompas
If we're getting into conspiracy theories, wouldn't gaming Yelp's reviews
simply provide more evidence of gamed Yelp reviews?!?!

I've spoken to numerous business owners in NYC who, after having turned down
Yelp's super deluxe premier service^, begin to receive negative reviews that
make no sense ("terrible service!" during a night the business was closed) or
reference nonexistent items ("terrible apple pie!" for a bakery that doesn't
offer apple pie).

^ Not the name, but they offer analytics and other services to businesses.

~~~
debt
So they purposely gamed their _own_ reviews to be negative in order to put off
the notion they don't game reviews?

~~~
achompas
I derisively referred to my own suggestion as a "conspiracy theory" because I
think this conversation is kind of bogus.

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diestl
How are Foursquare still going? Most useless app ever.

~~~
waylandsmithers
I couldn't agree more, but I also at one point thought "facebook, but ONLY
status updates? That's dumb."

These "pay attention to me" type apps all seem to do well.

~~~
nathos
This really isn't what Foursquare is anymore. It's become a rather good
location database & discovery platform.

I never used it when it was "hot" (~2012), but in the past few months I've
really come to like it for finding places (restaurants, etc.) & making lists.
Also, their tools for making edits to the DB are quite impressive, and they do
a great job of leveraging superusers to moderate those changes.

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mathgeek
All I see is the Famous Stars logo. Very similar.

