

Foursquare Gets A New Look: Redesign Makes Checking In Stickier And More Social - rkrishnakumar
http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/06/foursquare-gets-a-new-look-redesign-makes-checking-in-stickier-and-more-social/

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Braasch
Am I the only one who looks at foursquare and goes, "Meh?" I know some people
love the service (the reason I checked it out was because Woz uses it all the
time), but I just can't find a use for it.

Regardless, the redesigned application is really slick by any standards;
awesome job to the team for making the UI much better than before (maybe
that's one gripe I had that ruined my initial foursquare experience).

~~~
jorgeortiz85
Disclaimer: I work at foursquare.

I see foursquare as having a few main use cases. Not every use case is for
every user, but I think there's something for almost everyone.

1) Social utility/friend finder: Where are my friends and what are they doing?
Can I go hang out with them? Where the party at? If your friend is around the
corner at a bar, maybe you want to stop by and say hi (but not if it's a
date!). If a friend you haven't seen in years is in from out of town, maybe
you can catch up.

2) Recommendation engine/city guide: Foursquare knows what places you visit,
what places you come back to, and what places you recommend to your friends.
It can use this information from you, your friends, and the population at
large to recommend places that you might like to visit. This is useful to find
new things near your old haunts, or to get to know places you've never been to
before. It works remarkably well.

3) Game: Foursquare encourages you to do things in the real world that you
wouldn't otherwise do, and recognizes you for your real-world achievements.
Whether you've got a great gym streak going, or you're catching up with all
the friends you haven't seen in a long team, or you're visiting lots of new
places you've never been to before, Foursquare wants to reward and encourage
this behavior. It's not for everyone, but some people get really into the game
mechanic and sometimes even really change their behavior to do well in the
game.

4) Money saver: Local merchants can give you discounts, VIP treatment, and
other special perks for visiting their business for the first time or for
visiting repeatedly. This is a win-win-win for merchants, users, and
Foursquare, and we're excited to enable these kinds of interactions between
people and the local businesses they frequent.

5) Personal journal: I have a log going back three years of practically
everywhere I've ever gone, what I did when I was there, and who I was hanging
out with. This is a rich trove of information that I'm glad to have just for
my own records. But once you add a rich ecosystem of apps that use our API
(<http://timehop.com/> is one of my faves!), the potential is almost
unlimited.

Maybe your reaction is still "Meh", but I think there's quite a few reasons to
use (and love!) foursquare.

~~~
cmelbye
As a foursquare user, I totally agree with all of these points. The personal
journal point is especially cool. I didn't realize it until I tried looking at
my past checkins, but it was actually really interesting to look back at what
I was doing last summer, what I did when I went downtown with some friends
last winter, where we went on vacations, etc.

This update looks awesome, nice work! I especially like the new Friends tab -
much more useful now that it's actually possible to view multiple prior
checkins rather than just the most recent.

~~~
jorgeortiz85
Glad you like it! We've got lots more exciting stuff coming up soon :)

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oacgnol
Explore looks more and more like a killer feature and foursquare seems to be
touting it up front nowadays. I really like the direction they're going with
it combined with tips. There's something to be said about reading what are
essentially tweets about a certain place instead of a long-winded review on
Yelp. Explore + tips is probably going to replace searching for random venues
on Yelp when I want to try something new in the vicinity.

That being said, I'm still wondering how they'll monetize despite how very
useful it is. I know Amex has been in bed with them lately and even after
talking with a friend at Amex I still don't know where the money would come
in.

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kurtvarner
Direct links

App Store:
[http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id306934924?mt=8&src=af&#...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id306934924?mt=8&src=af&ign-
mpt=uo%3D6)

Google Play:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.joelapenna...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.joelapenna.foursquared&hl=en)

~~~
andrewpi
According to @dens, the new Android version won't be live until 9am eastern.

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tferris
As much as I liked foursquare: they jumped the sharks years ago and I do not
get why some still use foursquare. One missing feature was so obvious and I
wonder that they haven't implemented it:

A quick overview showing trending places right now (and that's all about).

Something like wherevent.com for now.

~~~
harryh
This is what we're trying to go for in the new explore tab. Before you even do
a search give you some interesting information about things nearby (including
things that are unusually busy) with the option to drill down and get more
results if any of the categories are interesting to you.

We've found that trending places on their own aren't very interesting (they're
often just train stations & airports). What you really want is places that are
busier than they normally are.

~~~
sc00ter
"What you really want is places that are busier than they normally are."

Is that not the definition of trending?

~~~
harryh
Hrm, I guess it's a bit ambiguous. Some folks say trending = busiest places
nearby, others say places that are /unusually/ busy. Regardless of the
semantics we've definitely found that the latter is more interesting.

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twodayslate
Before and After screenshots would be nice...

~~~
modal
BI has several: [http://www.businessinsider.com/foursquares-major-redesign-
is...](http://www.businessinsider.com/foursquares-major-redesign-is-live-
heres-everything-that-has-changed-2012-6)

~~~
twodayslate
Thank you! The new update is much more pleasing on the eyes.

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taylorbuley
Headline should be rewritten to include "aims to." I'm not sure how you can
claim a redesign does something before it actually does something. This
writer's opinion is not evidence that the design is working to keep users
around or make them more social.

