Foursquare Fatigue

FourPlayed said:

YOU'RE NOT THE ONLY ONE.

AND FINALLY I'VE DONE IT! After an all-time-high score of 637 points (10 Mar 2012), 43 mayorships, 21 badges, 1219 check-ins in 4 countries, and 161 photos sent remotely, I'VE FINALLY QUIT FOURSQUARE!

IT'S BEEN FUN, BUT IT'S OVER NOW!

Elizabeth Houston said:

I agree with you regarding the general use of FourSquare and other geo-location apps. The audience needs incentives to regularly participate and they need to be able to see value beyond just the incentives. I came across a great new geo-location app that focuses around people at events or other type of activities. While a main premise of the app is gaming, it also facilitates 2-way dialogues between participants. For companies, I think this is the next wave of geo-location apps...being able to engage in longer-term conversations and create more customer loyalty. In case you are interested in the app, its called DoubleDutch. Really a valuable part of our social media event plans moving forward.

dklimke said:

McDonalds seems to think Foursquare has a future.

http://mashable.com/2010/09/16/mcdonalds-foursquare-campaign

VickiB said:

Thanks for posting this. I feel the same way. I don't know if it is early adoptors syndrome but at some point you do expect a payoff and the fact that companies are not looking at this as a way to reward customer loyalty astounds me. But by the time they figure it out I think we will be on to the next thing. Businesses are missing out on a very easy way to enhance the customer experience and build loyalty.

Sandy Sidhu said:

I'm with you, Maggie. I recently blogged about this as well:http://www.sandyksidhu.com/2010/08/18/social-overdose-on-checking-out-and-possibly-checking-out/  because I noticed the same thing. I was checking in but not really seeing the point anymore. That being said, though am I being impatient and expecting something too soon? It is still relatively new. I'm still on the fence.

 

 

Matt said:

I'm with you, Maggie. I am growing a bit tired, but like everyone else I'm waiting to see what's next.

I always feel silly checking in. When I'm with friends or family, I do it from my pocket because I know I'll catch hell or worse, have to defend it.  

My city (Nashville) and friends aren't quite ready for prime time. They are coming around, but it is rather slow. 

KCPRguy said it best about Foursquare needs to educate businesses.

Yesterday I checked in at my car dealership while getting the car oiled and lubed. I was award mayorship by ousting Fred H. A friend quickly responded in a tweet after he learned of my new title,

"Huge congrats on this. I imagine Fred H. is removing the oil drain plug from his car as we speak so he may reclaim his crown."

Touche my friend.

Chris Norton said:

I have to admit the Foursquare thing has lost some of its shine. After all who is interested when someone checks into their own office I don't get that. I suppose today's launch of Facebook Places will be interesting to see how it pans out and what happens to the other location services such as Foursquare.

Fiona Bosticky said:

I've been using Foursquare for a while now, and where I am in Albania in Europe, only a small handful of people are currently using it, and we help each other out, with suggesting new restaurants, bars and cafes to visit.  When I check-in to a place, I usually get suggestions on other places nearby.  I really like it.

Here it is definitely more about providing "travellers tips" than becoming mayor or getting a badge.  And in terms of promotion, most businesses here are just learning about the web and the mysterious "Facebook", so I won't even begin to describe "Foursquare" to them.

Also, while I travel, Foursquare helps my friends, family and clients see where I am.  But in the global sense, I still think we are only seeing the beginning of geo-location social media, and once the crinkles are ironed out, like Twitter, I think Foursquare has potential to become a great social network for businesses and users.

In the early days of Twitter when the spammers were joining in leaps and bounds, and a lot of people didn't understand how to use Twitter, there was a lot of frustration as well.  But with the funding Foursquare received this year, I think they should be able to ride out the bumps.

Karen Schulman Dupuis said:

For me, checking into Foursquare has been a bit of rivalry fun with some locals on who could get and own the mayorship of our favourite local coffee haunt, but more importantly, it's been a way for me to place my favourite places in my small city on the proverbial map.

It advertises to my Twitter followers where I go and what the places that I value...it simply is that; a way for me to advertise my local, independent shop owners and help them out...

Altruism exists within seemingly narcissistic activities too...

Partisan said:

I have a few hundred digital savvy friends and colleagues (urban and suburban) who I communicate with via several channels. Only about 3 of them do check in's on any of the Foursquare-like tools. There is no compelling reason to do it except to get higher search engine rankings on yourself. Nobody cares if I stayed at the W in Westwood or am drinking at a local Austin dive bar. Why should they? They can call, text, email, FB, Tweet me anytime they want to. My phone is always on.

I do like the potential for opt-in geo-located marketing and would allow proximity based pings from certain retailers and brands if there were perks or offers attached. Just checking in is nonsense. (I do understand it might be more engaging if I lived in Manhattan or The Loop as I once did. Otherwise no thanks.)

But cheers to the innovators that keep trying new things - alas, most new fads disappear quietly without providing real value or entertainment to the users. I cannot even remember the names of dozens of tech companies that seemed important for a brief time.

 

MikeFeravolo said:

I like FourSqaure's  "Game" vibe with the "badges" and "mayorships" ,  and I hope to annoy all my facebook freinds by auto-posting every checkin. FourSqauare like anything else that is new and "Buzzworthy" it's going to attract a lot of people that try and grow tried of it after two weeks.

FourSquare needs to implement a highly targeted advertising program that is geo-loco driven and as easy to buy into as Facebook's pay per click. Only then will it be of value to businesses that aren't listed on the New York Exchange.

My personal favorite Geo-loco network is BrighKite, because they also combine an SMS Gateway and the abillty to post pictures. On Brikekite I mainy use the location ("Checkin feature") tagging for the photos, so people know where they where taken.

Laura said:

I agree. I was really into it in the beginning when I was getting a lot of badges, but the badges seem to be less plentiful, and what good are the points, anyway? I also get frustrated because it seems to be down a lot when I go to check in, so what's the point? Maybe there are more badges in other areas, but the DC area is definitely lacking. I've also never gotten any discounts for becoming mayor or checking in anywhere, so it's a little lackluster for me. I've switched over to Yelp to get over my Foursquare boredom since they now allow you to become the Duchess of places, and I found I was mostly checking in at restaurants. I may check out Scavengr again, but when I tried out the Android app a few months ago, it kept force closing on me. Again, not point in an app/service that I can't use.

Cait said:

Living and networking in the Boston area, I find location based services (Foursquare for me) to run right along with the rest of my social media, especially Twitter. They're not all on each platform, but many of the people I interact with on a daily basis on Twitter as well as Facebook, are using a LBS (mostly Foursquare). We are using it to check into tweetups, meetups, and conferences - yes, as well as Starbucks, the grocery store, and the movies. In our case, it has become an extension of our social media community. If its not Fourquare, it is Gowalla, SCVNR, or the next LBS to come into play.

I can, however definitely understand that a person living in an area where the social media community is more spread out geographically, would feel that it is not adding much value to their social media experience.

It is also fun! I don't take it so seriously, and I also dont feel that it really takes that much time out of my day to do. It is yet another social media experience, and as it may not be "the" solution for people or businesses, thats ok, because experimenting and experiencing is what social media is all about!

KCPRguy said:

I, too, have my gripes with FourSquare. My main one being that in order to check-in to an establishment, you need not actually physically be at that location, but only near that location. So essentially, a FourSquare user could become the mayor of an establishement without ever having visited that establishment. He/she only needs to be near that establishment for his/her mobile to pick up that location. I've seen establishments 15 miles away show up in my search results. If two or more people were in a battle to become mayor, it would certainly be enticing to check-in to that establishement without having to visit it.

Another gripe is when employees check-in to their workplaces. It seems many times that I'll check-in at a retailer to find out the mayor is the girl helping me. Granted, if a business is active on FourSquare, they should have protocol in place prohibiting employees from checking in. Although, as a business, I would want my employees to check-in to build the FourSquare activity. But, I would not want them to become mayor. I don't believe there's a way to allow employee check-ins, but disable them from becoming mayor.

For Maggie's post, I do agree with what Marcus said. FourSqaure, as of now, is most active in larger metropolitan areas. When I visiting Chicago, the "specials nearby" icon was constantly popping up on my app when I checked in. And, a couple of times, the specials got me through that business' door. Living in Kansas City, I am seeing more activity on FourSquare from businesses. Basically, if the businesses aren't valuing FourSquare and participating, there isn't much for FourSquare users to do.

The badges and mayorships tie in a sort of gaming component to FourSquare. I actually love the badges. They are like little Easter eggs; a nice surprise when I collect one. And if two or more more people are competing for mayorship of a particular business, they will likely frequent that business more to check-in and move toward the mayorship. At least that's the idea behind it (see previously gripe about checking in above).

Overall, I think FourSquare needs to better educate businesses why they should actively be using the platform. Like I said, when I was in Chicago, businesses all over were using FourSquare, making me want to check-in around the city just to see what types of specials were nearby.

Kennith B. Inge said:

 Maggie, I can agree with you partially.  Based on my experience using Foursquare, I too, am burned out.  I do not see any real value or reasoning for using the service.  Initially, it was fun showcasing areas that I am visiting.  However, after a while, I was either continuously going to the same locations (where's the fun in that) or completely forgetting to sign in altogether.

At the same time, I think the value is that it can be used to track your monthly visits for budgeting purposes or for check ins when I am really out somewhere new or actually interesting to people on Twitter or Facebook.  Then, there is value.  Of course, you now have Facebook for that so what's the point.  Why Foursquare?  Well, Foursquare can post to Twitter as well so if you do have both accounts, one app, one post.  With Facebook Places, I would have to log out of one, then visit the other.  That's too much especially considering the fact that I do not use the service as much as I use to. 

Foursquare has a job on their hands because they have to provide a value and make the game more fun for the users vs. acquiring badges.  That's boring.  At the end of the day, to answer your question, I think it has a ways to go and I do not believe they are running out of steam.  At the beginning of the year, I said that this would be the year of Foursquare and it has been so far.  They just need to bring more to the service to pull in more users and to keep existing users engaged. That is the task the company is facing.

Good article. 

Muphoric Sounds said:

Danielle said:

I disagree... the more I use Foursquare the more I love it. I've found, over time, it becomes less about the points and the mayorships and the badges, and more about the places. I can say without hesitation that there are places I've visited (or put on my mental list of places to visit) that I've found out about via Foursquare checkins. 

I follow a bunch of locals, many of whom I am already connected to on Twitter. I respect them, I think they're cool, and when I see them checking in somewhere all the time, it makes me want to check it out. Just as an example, I see Michael Tomko (@michaeltomko) checking in at Mud House on Cherokee all the time. I had never heard of the place, but now I really want to check it out. 

Although more promotions would be nice (I've definitely taken advantage of Robust's and Mosaic's... more than once), for me, Foursquare really has become a "new way to explore the city."

Robo965 said:

Agree whole-heartedly.  I do admire their effort to expand and develop alliances with companies like MTV in creating new badges that raise awareness on a given subject, something that has undoubtedly aided it's popularity since the launch of Facebook Places. 

But, your comparison to Twitter, and comment on Twitter being more useful as time goes on is right on target. Foursquare is past chapter one of creating a successful social media site, now it needs to focus in on chapter two: maintaining a successful social media site. 

Regina Walton said:

Not really, but I live in NYC and I'm connected to a big group of others who use 4sq.

I think those two factors play out in how it works for me.  Sometimes I enter new venues and that doesn't bother me all that much because it's rare.  What bothers me most is the Android app is slow to update my location, so sometimes I've been smack in the middle of a place yet 4sq is telling me that I'm not there.  It's because my phone's GPS has caught up to where I am.

However, I've also connected with friends as a result of checking in.  Example: Once I went shopping at a store and checked in there.  A friend who lives just a few blocks away saw I was there and invited me over for a visit after I was done.  I've had that happen in a few different contexts.  That's just the most striking one.

It's a much more urban thing than a suburban one right now.  Also, until there are tangible deals that people can get for checking in, fatigue might continue. I checked in to one place, saw there was a deal but it wasn't something I cared about (in the venue's defense though, it was geared towards regulars and that makes perfect sense.)

kuratowa said:

I think FourSquare has potential, but it has to do a better job of selling the idea to businesses that it is a built in viral customer loyalty program. Too few businesses give awards for Mayorships, and although I like getting shiny badges, and have worked to actively unlock some, the terrible fact is far too many of the badges are locked to specific geolocations that make them impossible to win without cheating (I don't live in L.A. or New York, and the TLC and Bravo check in locations are too sporadically saced cross country).  While I will zealously guard my Mayorships for my favorite local eateries, the incentive to expand out is not there as it should be. Gowalla and Facebook Places will also dilute Foursquare's ability toleverage that aspect.

Prakky said:

I'm in the same boat as you, Maggie. I've been using Foursquare for months and am a little fatigued - I think the only thing keeping me logging in is 1) boredom while waiting at restaurants or cafes, or in shop queues and 2) waiting to see what happens next in Foursquare and not wanting to miss out! It definitely isn't the "next Twitter' because like you, I can't live without Twitter, but I can say goodbye to Foursquare if it doesn't offer value soon.

mardod said:

I would have to agree. I've only been using it for a couple of weeks and I don't see any advantage to using it, despite all the hype. I suspect unless a practical purpose can be found for it in the next couple of years, it will go the way of Google Wave.

Marcus said:

While there is some merit in what you're saying, the reality is that foursquare was made by a bunch of fun-loving/seeking guys in NYC. Being in a major city is what makes foursquare work. And being able to see when/where your friends are checking in is great. If I lived in suburbia, I would see no use for foursquare.

Joe Spake said:

My wife showed a bit of frustation when we arrived at a nice restaurant for our anniversary dinner and I paused to check in on 4Square.  And Yelp, And SCVNGR.  I feel your fatigue.

Matthew Olson said:

There are two ways to look at the Foursquare market: as a business and as a user. For users, there may be an element of fatigue because businesses are not building the rewards mechanisms possible. By giving users a reason to participate beyond the honeymoon period, it will "keep the party going."

For businesses, it is an opportunity to build a form of loyalty normally difficult to even imagine. Creating a reward system for users sharing their locations with their interest community will be a big help in keeping your brand top of mind. Businesses sometimes show fatigue, but is it due to failing to inform their customers about Foursquare and its rewards. A great example of this is Joe Sorge's AJ Bombers. 

While user-fatigue may be very real for Foursquare users, but it is up to the businesses to step up and engage for their benefit.

windycityexpat said:

i agree with you. i actually never really got into it in the first place. the important people in my life know where i'm at and often are with me. and what's up with the "clever" names for home?