

Ask HN: What problem does Foursquare/Gowalla/Places solve? - mcxx

One of the most repeated advice for startups is build something people want, something that solves a problem. What problem do these services solve? They are just games/tools for sharing where I am right now. It's fun, but I can live without it. I get that there's value for business owners, but that's just a byproduct, at least I percieve it that way. For a regular user who is just checking-in, there's no real value.<p>So, what problem do they solve?
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dsplittgerber
I think there is this huge gap between which startups are covered all the time
in the tech-savy press and which ones actually (will) matter for most
'regular' people medium-to-long term. Being a 'media-darling' and getting lots
of buzz IMHO doesn't correlate with serious adoption beyond SF bay and
Boston/NYC. Generally speaking, I think solving regular peoples' problems
could be more worthwhile than pandering to early-adopters. I don't think they
necessarily have the same problems.

~~~
jbooth
True, but FourSquare is really entertaining to the people who use it. Might
not be a lasting trend but I've had several people gush about how fun it is.
And there's a huge advertising opportunity, granted, again, that they can
remain the popular platform for local-social-whatever.

I mean, what problem does FarmVille solve?

~~~
mcantor
It solves the problem of letting someone feel like they are nurturing
something.

~~~
jbooth
The question was rhetorical :) But thanks.

------
charliepark
I think there's a serious bifurcation between "tech-savvy, smartphone-using,
social (and generally single) twenty- and thirty-somethings with disposable
income and time, living in urban centers" and ... everyone else. If you aren't
in that first group (I'm not), location-aware apps and social services aren't
going to have a lot of utility. But if you live in Brooklyn, work in
Manhattan, go out to bars or restaurants with friends two or three times per
week, a service like Foursquare could be really useful: "I'm heading to the
subway station ... which stop has a higher concentration of my friends at
bars? Do I get off in the Village or Chelsea? Oh? Everyone's at Shake Shack?
Off I go!" (and so on)

~~~
tomwans
does anyone want to go to shake shack right now? I do.

~~~
telemachos
Upvoted because (a) I always want to go to Shake Shack and (b) why would
anyone _downvote_ this harmless comment?

------
telemachos
First, the two parts of your advice aren't identical. That is, "something
people want" doesn't always mean "something that solves a problem."

Second, you're being overly demanding, I think, even about "solves a problem."
We could do a whole song and dance about the human _need_ for fun, but that
would be beside the point. When you say "It's fun, but I can live without it,"
you changed the terms of the whole debate. We started with "solves a problem,"
but _tons_ of things solve problems and yet you can live without them.

Finally, I'm pretty sure that there is a real category "invented needs" (or
"invented desires", if you prefer), and that lots of webapps fall into that
category. The existence of the product creates the need (desire) after the
fact.

~~~
mcxx
Sure I can live without most things that solve a problem, but that's not the
point. I want to understand if there's some added value for the users, why
would they start (and continue) using it in the first place. Jerome_etienne
gave a good answer, but you also made a good point with the "invented needs".
On the other hand, I'm not sure that can last for more than a couple of years
on its own. Users flock to the next hot thing all the time.

~~~
telemachos
What you say here makes sense, but I'm not the one who brought up "living
without" things; you did, in your original question. I agree that the real
focus should be on _why_ people flock to these things, but in that case, you
answered your own question: it's fun (you said). The value _is_ the fun.

As for not lasting or people flocking to the next hot thing, that sounds about
right to me for many faddish things that you find and play with on the
internet, no?

------
marknutter
This thread reminds me of the cacophony of similar questions people had about
Twitter when it was the center of attention. I think the problems that these
location apps solve are quite obvious, just like I thought that Twitter very
obviously solved problems too.

The catch is, however, that you need to have a significant amount of your
friends and acquaintances using either service for them to become useful.
Imagine if you were in college, and were meeting a bunch of new people every
week, and you could see at any moment where your new friends are hanging out,
or partying, or studying. You could see where the most popular hangouts are.
You could check and see if anyone you know is at the same location you are
currently at.

Once the network effect kicks in, these apps become awesome. And yes, just as
people pigeonholed Twitter as being a narcissistic service, these apps allow
people to express themselves as well, only through their choice of venue, not
their choice of words.

If you want practical solutions, imagine a street team for a band or product
going around town hitting all the hip locations spreading the word about a new
album or product. They could keep tabs on each other as they fan out over the
city and make sure they don't double up on locations.

The possibilities are endless, really. You just need to use your imagination
and stop being so skeptical.

------
scrrr
I started studying marketing in order to start my own company some time ago
and from the very beginning I remember one maxim that stuck with me: "If you
cant be the best in a category, invent a new category."

I think that makes sense and it's exactly what Foursquare and Gowalla do.
Besides, if people only had invented what other people said their need was in
history, perhaps we wouldn't have many things we take for granted today.

Also: Entertainment is a huge deal. Look at the gaming industry.

~~~
NickPollard
To paraphase Henry Ford, 'If I'd have asked people what they wanted, they
would have said a faster horse.'

~~~
jonpaul
But at least he would have learned that their problem was speed.

~~~
jacquesm
He got that one solved pretty good though, in spite of lack of market
research.

About 3 years ago a friend named Ed A. who owns a Ford Model-A took me out for
a spin and it was surprisingly quick for it's very small engine, it wasn't the
fastest of the mark but that didn't stop it from accelerating all the way to
100 km/h.

The difference between a steady 100 km/h and a horse is quite large, in fact
we haven't gone much beyond what the Model-A could do in day to day driving
situations.

------
jerome_etienne
knowing where people are physically is a usefull info.

this is no game. it is big stuff, close to the localisation trend. very linked
to mobile world obviously. google/twitter/facebook are all going in the
localisation in order to get data closer to the user. They are more likely to
be relevant to them.

possible usage scenarios

"where are my friends"

"i like this personn, oh this personn is going there, oh i dunno this place,
maybe i will like this place"

"oh you went to this bar ? i like it too. ask bob the barman to give you one
drink on the house, i know him"

obviously once the arch is setup, it is possible to push local store ads on
this. It think local-store ads on the internet will be huge, once the arch is
setup, so not soon, but in a few years.

The deployment of local ads is slow, because you need to get local stores to
actually advertize... and they are not used to it. This is my understanding of
it at least. aka "the market is not yet ready".

~~~
rgoddard
Basically it add physicality to the virtual world. Part of the trend of the
internet is to help connect people who are not physically present or close. So
people can form groups with other people based on interest rather then on
location. But there is still lots of value in connecting with people on a more
physical level, and these types of services tap into that value.

------
GBKS
How about these scenarios?

"721 people are gathering five blocks down? One of them posted a picture. Oh,
looks like there is a free concert happening in the park? Let me check that
out."

"355 people at grocery store? Maybe I'll wait until it slows down and go
later."

"467 people on Interstate X? Might be an accident."

Even with anonymous tracking, this could be really interesting.

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evilduck
Foursquare: entertainment for users, spam for non-users. As a non-user, they
provide an easy means to identify and remove people from my social networks
who are willing to spam me.

Seriously, apps that send messages to non-users by default are annoying. If I
cared about where you've been, I can join Foursquare on my own, I shouldn't be
required to block every new app that comes along, it should be opt-in.

~~~
wgj
What path are they using to spam you? I've never seen foursquare spam.

~~~
loumf
It spams feeds. So you end up with a lot of checkins inside of Twitter, FB,
etc. Depending on how linked the person's accounts are.

------
jimbokun
I don't use any of these products (I don't think I'm the target demographic)
but it seems that they can be applied to jwz's classic use case:

"Your "use case" should be, there's a 22 year old college student living in
the dorms. How will this software get him laid?"

<http://www.jwz.org/doc/groupware.html>

Where human beings are concerned, there are few problems more fundamental than
that.

------
NEPatriot
I think we often only view the world in terms of problems. But there are
different types of problems which can be further broken down. I think the
quote below puts it best.

"There are three kinds of pain. You can be vitamins to someone, you can be
aspirin to someone, or you can be morphine to someone"

-Genevieve Thiers

------
hcarmichel
I agree these companies are more for entertainment and socializing than
"solving a problem". You can easily argue the twitter doesn't solve a specific
problem, as with most geolocation services it is merely a tool for sharing
information. Having said that I think there is a real problem that can be
solved using geoloction technology and that problem is "where the heck are
you?". My roomate and I moved to a new city recently and had an terrible time
coordinating meetups with people. To solve our problem we created a simple web
app. We posted it on HN a couple days ago
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1607982>

------
Russelldb
From <http://www.jwz.org/doc/groupware.html>

> So I said, narrow the focus. Your "use case" should be, there's a 22 year
> old college student living in the dorms. How will this software get him
> laid?

------
Tyrannosaurs
Is it "I can't tell the world enough about me through Twitter, Facebook,
Flickr and Tumblr and I for some utterly incomprehensible reason I honestly
believe the world NEEDS TO KNOW MORE about what I'm doing"?

------
AmberShah
Games are a totally valid business and solve the problem of boredom. It seems
like you're dismissing games as a category of business and that's silly. Just
look at the giant video game industry.

I don't think that's all a location-based service provides though. It always
seemed silly that everyone has mobile phones, and yet I have no way of knowing
where any of my friends are without polling each one individually. So far they
haven't helped since most people I know and care about are not on them yet.

------
sunkencity
They solve the problem of saying something when you have nothing to say, and
making it more socially acceptable (and easier) to brag about where you are
going and what you are doing.

------
terra_t
Attracting investment from VC's, hoping for a big sell-out before the thing
falls flat on its face.

------
thibaut_barrere
They don't have to solve a problem; they satisfy needs, such as the need to
share, to belong to a community, joy/play etc.

Non-violent communication gathers these - it's pretty useful for a
brainstorming, for instance:

\- <http://www.cnvc.org/en/Training/needs-inventory>

Also useful:

\- <http://www.cnvc.org/en/Training/feelings-inventory>

------
camiller
It solves the problem of knowing if your target is at home before you go to
rob it.

Seriously, I can't ever see myself using this. I don't want people to know
where I am because then they know where I'm not.

I'm also appalled by the (luckily few) LinkedIn connections that let tripit
tell me when they will be out of town. If I were a bad guy that would start my
target list.

...end of rant

~~~
cullenking
Good thing most bad-guys aren't super tech savvy...Most people going out to
rob someone aren't necessarily using technology to assist in their exploits.

I live in as much of a hood as you can get in Portland, and the people I am
worried about being robbed by are any neighbors that may see me packing up to
leave for the weekend!

I won't be jumping on this location bandwagon myself, however, my guess is
this will NOT fly without some access controls.

------
mlflanagan
They provide entertainment. They don't solve any problem, unless you consider
the search for entertainment to be a problem.

~~~
kristiandupont
Exactly - just like every game company, film production company or musician.

------
nadam
I think the following two sentences:

'build something people want' 'build something that solves a problem'

became just empty trivialities by now. These were important relevations after
the dot com boom: During the first dot com boom there were those overly
optimistic overly financed companies which did not care about what people
want. But by now I think this lesson is learned, everybody want to solve a
problem and everybody cares about what people want. It is just very hard to
know what people want. Or at least hard to know it better then the
competition. That's why most startups fail. Honestly I would not think some
years ago that these services like Foursquare will be such a big deal. I am
coming from a very different social context, so I cannot really understand the
needs of those kind of people who use these services. That's why I don't even
try to create these kind of startups.

------
trizk
I have said this before. Mobility is such a disruptive shift in computing, I
am also surprised that the best that is being offered to consumers are check
in games and promos. Looking back at the wired internet I think that its
widespread adoption was due mostly to its utility. Sure there are distracting
fun and games, but people use it because it is inherently useful.

That is the driving principle behind our startup, Presence.
<http://www.presence.co>

We enable physical locations with virtual services, and make them accessible
to both businesses and consumers, in an attempt to make mobile useful. If you
have some time please visit our website to see what we are up to. I would
sincerely appreciate the perspective of the HN community.

~~~
Erlend
Maybe you should simplify your message. I had problems grasping why this might
be useful to me.

------
rue
"What do I do with all this time on my hands?"

"How do I avoid being bored?"

~~~
dctoedt
I suppose volunteer work doesn't cut it any more, because we've solve all the
problems that used to afflict people? Nor continuing-education classes,
because we all know everything we'll ever need to know? </sardonic>

Seriously, an excess of leisure time may be another manifestation of business
efficiencies brought about by technology improvements (the most obvious
manifestation being unemployment). The long-term sociological implications
could be interesting.

------
robryan
I think its a massive problem space, sure you could argue we'd all go on
without it being solved, but the same can hold true for services like Twitter.

Many businesses at situated at a physical location, they need an effective way
to be able to promote their offerings. People are out and about and want to
know where the best places to go are, this combines their friends and other
opinions, recommendations algorithms and can at time align with businesses
wanting to promote themselves.

I guess saying this isn't a problem would be similar to saying that adwords
didn't solve a problem for businesses less reliant on a physical location.

------
brosephius
it engages your ego, like every other social networking service. it lets you
feel more important than you really are. and by compelling you to contribute,
it has the side effect of creating value for others to consume.

------
kmfrk
It creates a better platform for rewarding regulars and, on the places' side,
to turn them into advocates for the place - with reference to the classic
article about what the 5-10% diehard fans can do for spreading the word
compared to regular users (the details and link escape me).

It has the potential to facilitate the bond between person and place
(business, shop, gym, bar, etc.) in a manner that is much more convenient than
coupons, ticket coupons, remembering their faces and names, etc.

In this case, everyone wins.

------
ethanhuynh
think job-to-be-done, people visit places, they want to share their location
and update status associated with those places to their friends, and that is
the job they want to get done. Ask yourself how many times you visit a place
and you want your friends to know about it (let alone earning discounts or
earning awards)? if you have thought about it several times which means you
might have a job that you want to get done. Before LCB service, they either
use workaround solutions like FB status update and Twitter (tweet sth like
(@John's coffee)) to their friends / followers or simply they don't use
anything at all, at the very core, LBS target non-consumers, people who know
they have a job to be done, but still looking around for a solution.

I agree that this job is not important to everyone, some might buy it some
might not, and to think about it further, I think their core priority is to
give user enough motivation / incentives to use their LCB services, that's why
they add Reward systems and gaming elements, in other words, give users more
reasons to use their service rather than just mindlessly checking - ins, I
wrote a blog post about this [http://20sth.tumblr.com/post/974848197/how-to-
get-users-to-u...](http://20sth.tumblr.com/post/974848197/how-to-get-users-to-
use-your-product)

------
richardw
The game aspect is just to get traction and frankly, it's a waste of time.
However, I imagine travelling to a new town on vacation and seeing suggestions
and tips from friends of mine that have been there before. Or looking for
something to do on a Friday evening and seeing that there's a new Thai place
down the road. Once the game has done its work, the real benefits will emerge.

------
meghan
It's hard for local businesses to leverage technology for advertising.
foursquare and other location-based services allow local businesses -- like
restaurants and bars and shops -- to identify, target, and reward customers.
The users benefit from deals / discounts with local businesses that are
relevant to them. That seems valuable to me.

------
siglesias
Easy. These services provide you with instant access to advice from other
people who have been to that place before. For example, when I was in in NYC
recently, I frequently consulted Foursquare to get recommendations about what
to eat. Got some great advice that previous patrons had provided about the
Marshmallow Shake. =)

------
duck
In general, when you are single there is a very low cost and high desire to go
to where your friends are when living in an urban area, but as you move on to
getting married and having kids (and in a lot cases moving away from dense
urban areas) the cost keeps increasing and the desire decreases.

------
markkat
IMHO not every startup needs to solve a problem. Most probably should, but
entertainment is a viable reason for existence. Even so, some services simply
lower barriers for socialization, which serves a need.

That said, I don't get Foursquare, etc. There isn't much entertainment there.

~~~
warfangle
My use-case for Foursquare:

Hmm, which bar in the neighborhood are my friends at tonight? Oh, I'll just
check foursquare instead of texting them.

~~~
markkat
Yeah, that's lowering the barrier for socialization. I can see it.

------
adammichaelc
I'd say they are entertainment startups. So they solve the boredom problem.
Take FourSquare. It's a game, in the real-world. You win points for playing
and then even prizes for being at the top of the leaderboard (mayor, badges,
etc).

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herval
the best repeated advice I've seen so far is "build something that entices one
or more cardinal sins". If your game/tool/app tickles jealousness, pride,
gluttony, greed or any other major sin, you're in for a good start

4sq/gowalla work on vanity (people like doing things/going places to
impress/make their friends envy) as well as gluttony (the 'badges' concept -
eat all you can eat), and to a point, even sloth ('whatever, I'm _here_ and
too lazy to call every one of my friends individually')

------
kiplinger
It solves the "I want everyone to think I'm cool" problem, or at least it
tries to.

------
bpourriahi
Entertainment, connection, discovery

------
vaksel
why do you dismiss the benefit to businesses?

and consumers do get some extra deals from using these services

------
robertgaal
People on HN don't get that an app which makes you more social solves a real
problem. What a surprise.

