
The New Foursquare - joaodepaula
http://avc.com/2014/08/the-new-foursquare/
======
acquiHire2014
They've sacrificed their core of users who supplied all of the checkins and
tips in order to try to kill Yelp. Problem was, only those loyal users were
ever convinced that they were better than yelp.

Now that they've chosen the foursquare name, which is synonymous with
checkins, for their Yelp clone, it seems like they haven't thought out...

1\. If the checkin users leave because Swarm is stupid and eliminates
everything fun (mayorships, badges, reading all the tips without going to
another app, seeing who else is checked in besides your friends), who is going
to keep supplying them with behavioral data? Not casual users, who won't open
the app and show their location at all until they're looking for a
recommendations. In terms of data, casual users are takers, while the check-in
users are givers.

2\. Foursquare super users (their community of people who applied for edit
privileges on the venue data) are probably all avid check-in users. Without
them, junk venues and spam may overwhelm.

3\. How do they really expect to attract enough users who want to use the new
foursquare now that the app is a completely different thing? What's their
differentiator from Yelp? To me it just seems like it's Yelp but with shorter
reviews. Everyone who didn't use foursquare before because they hated check-
ins isn't going to even know they killed check-ins and will still stay away.

I think this whole plan might have had a chance if they'd left foursquare
alone as their data generator, and launched a new app with a new name for
their Yelp clone. At least then they'd have a new chance to introduce
themselves and try to attract the mass audience they're going for.

~~~
schainan
I work for Foursquare; here's my answer to #3:

It's not just that tips are shorter than reviews, though that's part of it.
The issue with Yelp is that every single user gets the same recommendations if
they search at the same place and time. And in a world where everything is
becoming more personalized, it's crazy that the predominant app in the local
search category does nothing to tailor its results to you. When you sign up
for the new Foursquare, it asks you for your tastes so that every time you
search, every time you open the app, it will be tailored for the things you
like. It's like Amazon recommended products vs the experience you get on non-
smart ecommerce platforms. It's smarter at a fundamental level; the things we
are doing with our data are really smart and unprecedented in this space.
That's why I'm confident we have a differentiated product in this new app, and
I hope you try it out and see what I mean.

Furthermore, we still have tons of check-in data - 90% of our checkin users
have moved over to Swarm and continue to check in. So I don't think there's
much to worry about with regards to our data getting stale and losing quality.

~~~
frostmatthew
> 90% of our checkin users have moved over to Swarm and continue to check in

You/Foursquare really should clarify exactly what you mean by this - we keep
hearing how "successful" Swarm is but it seems most [former] users (including
me) and their friends (including mine) stopped using it when (or shortly
after) the switch happened.

Right now Foursquare sounds like Google in the early days of Google+ where
they were touting how much people were posting but everybody was saying they
never saw any activity in their stream.

~~~
TeMPOraL
There is some sort of automated checking in going on; I haven't checked in
even once in Swarm, and I've been asked by my friends if I'm a fan of this
change because apparently, I've been checking in all over the city.

~~~
malbiniak
Your location/neighborhood is being updated automatically in the background,
but you are not automatically checked into venues.

------
misiti3780
I have been using Foursqaure for years in NYC, and I think it is really useful
for finding new places and picking food on the menus. Checkins, at the end of
the day, are a means to an end. Mayorships/Badges/Game Mechanics/etc. might
have made their app more viral (I stress might), but it appears there was
never going be a way to monetize them, hence their "pivot"

This is how I see it now:

1) If you still live in a major metropolitan area (like NYC, San Fran) then
the service is still useful (probably more useful with this new design)

2) If you do not live in a major metropolitan area, Foursqaure is pretty much
useless - but it always was and always will be.

3) Now that they removed checkins, I dont expect to ever get recommendations
better than what I am currently getting, because I am not downloading swarm.

The fact that they removed checkins from their core app seems really crazy to
me - not because I thought checking in were useful, but more because the whole
concept around the new app (I think?) is their machine learning algorithms
leverage their huge database to provide great recommendations. With Swarm, not
only did they add friction to creating more of this data easily (I have to
switch apps to do it), Swarm was actually pretty buggy and doesnt appear to be
gaining user adoption (per app store reviews, which are obviously subjective).

Disclaimer: I rarely use Yelp, and never use it in NYC because of Foursqaure

~~~
ssmoot
Piggy-backing: They want reviews and tips right? I rarely check-in on Yelp,
but on the rare occasion I do, I'm probably also writing a review and
uploading photos.

Why on earth would you make a whole separate app for a single button and
modal? And what incentive do I have to participate?

~~~
bigdubs
Swarm also is where the social components reside; seeing where your friends
have checked in, seeing who's nearby, making plans etc.

------
andmarios
Imo this is one of the worst business moves I've seen. Old 4sq? Loved it. New
4sq and swarm? Won't bother.

I may sound harsh but this is how I feel as a user. Foursquare had a perfect
mix of social, gamification and information. It made you want to be part of
its network.

As for swarm, I don't even understand how they thought that it would make a
nice name except that it is marginally better than herd. Why a human would
want to be part of a swarm?

------
jgalt212
Wow, coordinated assaults from two of their larger backers (USV and AH).

Please, please Marissa Mayer take us out of this bad trade.

~~~
nroach
Yes, and the article reads like an advertisement. I generally like reading AVC
posts because there's often some thought-provoking questions or other insight
with broader application. Not so on this one. I guess the take-away point with
this one is going to be long-term, watching to see if they're successful in
using empty buzz to generate an exit.

~~~
antr
Last year's round of financing was primarily a loan from Silver Lake. Loans
(venture loans), on a company/asset that hasn't got genuine revenues is really
expensive, both the interests, and size – I'm assuming it's an interest
accruing loan (no way can FourSquare pay cash interests). This scenario should
be eating everyone's returns.

The post definitely comes across as a 'Hey, look at us!', the new logo, new
apps, is also a sign that FourSquare wants to transmit the message of 'We are
still alive and doing 'cool' stuff', but my understanding is that they are
trying not to appear stale, which to me they are. I don't think the top line
operational metrics are doing that well. I think all parties are trying to
save the day with some type of 0.8x-1x cash invested sale price. I even think
that is ambitious. Do startups that are doing well market themselves as 'The
New Twitter', 'The New Facebook', 'The New Google', no – something isn't
working. Time will tell.

------
VLM
I don't buy the privacy argument. Its an inherently extroverted market so you
split your apps into an introvert app that no one in the market will want to
use and an extrovert app. Why?

I don't buy the assertion that the small segment of the population that was
into 4sq would be into privacy. They're optimizing the experience for people
that don't exist beyond the initial fad-explosion.

I would extend my remarks that its a two phase operation where the initial
phase is all friends and family and social, but it rapidly converts to
astroturfing, basically geo-aware semi-stealthy advertising. Its twitter, as a
self selected spam delivery service, but location aware. Not sure how that
fits into the privacy angle. This is going to be missed insight on HN because
there are so many early adopters here who will remember nostalgically the good
old days of being the first on a new service before the masses and then
astroturfers invaded and destroyed it.

~~~
RyJones
Using Facebook as a model for privacy reinforced my decision to stop using
foursquare.

------
matthewwiese
Does their new welcome page look broken/ugly to anyone else? I'm wondering if
it's just on my end; scroll down past the initial tick.

[https://foursquare.com/download#welcome](https://foursquare.com/download#welcome)

~~~
adventured
Yeah it's broken. I'm on Firefox with Win8, the gray text is misaligned and
missing an element / backdrop.

------
rdl
I got really fed up with the forced move to Swarm a while ago, because I only
really care about two parts of Foursquare -- a log of my own checkins, and
tips at places once I've already arrived. I generally use Yelp or Google for
discovering-new-venues, e.g. "search, nearby, chinese restaurant".

I ended up deleting both apps; I'll give it a try again in a few weeks to see
if the integration got better, but it felt like I was really being forced into
a (for me) worse experience. The Swarm app would lock up or otherwise be
unresponsive.

~~~
jvm
> search, nearby, chinese restaurant

Have you tried using 4sq for this? I actually find it's quite good at it, and
honestly the filters and interface are way nicer than Yelp.

~~~
rdl
Yelp is good enough for this, especially for stuff like "open now".

~~~
achompas
4sq offers this as well

------
csomar
I'm using Foursquare mainly to make new friends and find interesting
people/places. They just made that more difficult. Would have loved if they
increased the friends number limit, and made it easier to communicate with
other members.

Won't remove my account but will stop using it. I wonder how their performance
will move in the next few weeks. It'll be devastating if their user-base is
using it for the same reason (as me) and just stop checkin-ing.

------
martingordon
Foursquare, without ratings, serves a different use case than Yelp. I use Yelp
to find a place to go. Once I'm there, I (sometimes, but not usually) check
Foursquare for menu recommendations.

If I'm going out with friends, I don't want to put too much weight on my own
tastes, I want to pick a place that has a high likelihood of appealing to
everyone. Ratings are a good proxy for that – I don't have the time or the
knowledge to filter tips by my friends' preferences.

Does the new Foursquare solve this? If not, then it can't compete with Yelp.
If it does, was it worth the cost of losing future check-in data (due to less
than 100% adoption of Swarm)?

As an aside, how are users' check-ins being used to inform recommendations? I
would argue that they shouldn't – I've never heard of anyone just checking in
on Foursquare to places they like, I think most people use Foursquare as a
personal record and as a way to let friends know where they've been.

~~~
jvm
4sq does have ratings, and I actually find them to be pretty solid. I've never
been disappointed by a place that was 9+.

------
gordon_freeman
I think this has been one of the toughest decisions foursquare has made till
now albeit in the right direction. Alienating the check-in feature from core-
foursquare app might piss off some power users but IMO there is not much value
added by check-in for the user. With the amount of data FS has gathered from
users up until now will be better utilized via place-discovery. Also I believe
that there is a need for this kind of service which we can use to discover
places globally rather than depend on something like Yelp which is mostly US
centric. On improvement side, I think they should make check-ins using Swarm
as easy as possible in one tap. Currently they ask to select/write lot of
optional stuff while check-in which slows down the process.

------
soneca
I don't agree at all with the "so we needed to separate apps to do that"
argument.

Is it that difficult to make a imediate check-in a standard private info and a
review + aggregate check-ins a standard public info?

Only your friends know you did a check-in right now at that restaurant. But
everyone who look at that restaurant on Foursquare can see your review (if you
did one) and how many checkins you, as the author of the review has there. As
well as how many check-ins total that restaurant has from any users.

It looks like a wrong strategy to me. It is as Facebook would decide to
separate in two different apps (and brands) its newsfeed and its fanpages.

------
skwirl
I'm wondering if anyone is considering building a new version of what
Foursquare used to be. If this were was built and done well and had a point
system, mayorships, badges, etc. and allowed me to browse and export my old
check-ins, I would use it, and I'm sure you'd get a reasonable initial
userbase just off of disgruntled Foursquare users.

It's certainly not a small project. I'm not sure how you get the initial list
of locations. I also know Foursquare collects data about wifi networks to
pinpoint your location, and that may be hard to replicate. But there's
definitely a void here to be filled.

------
lnanek2
With Foursquare I used to make pretty interesting friends by friending people
at the same venue. I had a lot of fun following and meeting and commenting
with a fashion teacher who bounces between NYC and Korea, a NJ man stuck going
to the hospital regularly, etc.. With Swarm that has been completely removed
and you only see people you know and only half the people I knew even
transferred over to the new app. I don't even know what Foursquare is for any
more, an attempted Yelp clone, I guess, but I just use Yelp for that instead
because it is better.

------
teh_klev
Can anyone explain the point of Foursquare? I live in rural Scotland, I ended
up muting or ignoring friends who did this "I've just checked in <somewhere
fancy>" through Foursqaure. It just got really annoying, I don't really care
about where my pals are "checking in to". Please enlighten me.

~~~
TeMPOraL
It's much more useful in a dense urban area. You can e.g. see that your friend
is on the same event as you. Or in a caffee two blocks from you. Or in a
cinema watching a movie, so you now have a conversation topic.

One of my experiences of using Foursquare is when a friend of mine checked in
to a particular takeout food venue we fancy. A notification came, and a guy
sitting next to me got his phone and call the mentioned friend to also buy
food for all of us.

Such random situations were the main value of Foursquare to me.

------
lukasm
I have 2.4Ghz i5, 8G Ram, SSD Macbook and the performance of the landing page
is horrendous.

~~~
nevi-me
3.2Ghz i7, 16GB Ram, SSD Windows, landing page seems ok, even with the
processor on power-saving mode. Does your browser's CPU count increase
significantly?

~~~
lukasm
Yes 100%. I'm using Chrome. I could by any plugin or extension that I'm using
(Chrome Helper is 89%) Flashblock, AdBlock etc. On the other side, timeline
says that I my FPS is below 30 with many spikes caused by render and paint.
Hmmm.

~~~
nevi-me
Yea, could be a plugin or something else. Also on Chrome, and didn't see any
spikes

