On: Dear Foursquare, Gowalla: Please Let’s Stop Pretending This Is Fun

[pavs]

What was the wow factor of foursquare?

[smokeyj → pavs]

Wow, I can't believe people use this.

[drusenko → pavs]

I enjoyed the "travel log" aspect of it. It was fun to be able to look back a couple months and remember every restaurant I ate at, and every place I went.

The mayorships and badges were fun at first, too.

Ultimately, though, I decided it wasn't providing enough value for the effort I was putting into it, and stopped cold turkey.

[matwood → pavs]

Maybe the same novelty that any other achievement based game like system provides?

[antareus → matwood]

And the achievements give you...what? A tiny shot of dopamine?

It is hard to be enamored with tech these days when you see what people fall for.

[matwood → antareus]

They don't provide anything but I was responding to someone who asked what the wow facto was. There really isn't any wow factor, but for some reason people are suckers for achievements. Just look at pretty much any video game today for additional examples.

[techbio → pavs]

Wow, I had this idea 8 years ago and abandoned it because I lived in the Midwest.