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

http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/13/foursquare-gowalla-stop-pretending-fun/

by ssclafani • 16 years ago

160 72 16 years ago

techcrunch.com

chadp• 16 years ago

about time someone in the press admitted to these LBS' (current) uselessness.

Potential for being big businesses (which is exciting for the companies) but personally useless for me at the moment.

byoung2• 16 years ago

I agree...I was a big fan of FourSquare at first, but now that the wow factor has worn off, I don't see the point anymore. Now if being the mayor gave me coupons or discounts, then I'd have more of an incentive to check in more often at more places.

pavs• 16 years ago

What was the wow factor of foursquare?

commandar• 16 years ago

>Now if being the mayor gave me coupons or discounts, then I'd have more of an incentive to check in more often at more places.

Seems to be the direction they're headed in. I've noticed more restaurants in my area having their location tagged with something like "show this to your server for a free appetizer" and the like recently.

SCVNGR actually seems to have the most prominent tools for this kind of thing and does the best job up playing up the game aspect by throwing in some fun challenges, but just doesn't have the user base to be relevant, unfortunately.

grandalf• 16 years ago

It took me a while to realize what Gowalla was after seeing some bizarre tweets about it for a few months. When I finally clicked on one of the URLs there was no map, no pictures, only a useless placeholder page for the business. What a waste of time it was clicking on that link... it offered nothing to someone who wasn't already familiar with the business... in essence it was a 100% regrettable click.

Why would Gowalla encourage people to tweet useless links to their friends/follwers?

jkaljundi• 16 years ago

That's the reason why Facebook Places is available only in the US and coming to a few selected countries later. They want to populate the database in advance. Same reason for Yelp to take the country by country approach, to make sure it's useful.

vacanti• 16 years ago

The real reason why Groupon is growing faster than Foursquare is because Groupon can and is aggressively buying users at $5 to $10. Foursquare can't.

samtp• 16 years ago

Do you know they pay $5 to $10 per customer or is it a guess? just curious

bmr• 16 years ago

In their early days, they were paying affiliates $2 per email submit.

jfarmer• 16 years ago

Yes, they are definitely paying that much (or more). Groupon and Zynga are responsible for increasing the CAC via Facebook ads by 2-3x over the last year and a half.

csavage• 16 years ago

This is yet another unappreciated benefit of having a business model where someone is actually paying for something. You get to pay to get users.

antidaily• 16 years ago

I hate Groupon. I'd be more impressed with their meteoric popularity if businesses were really benefitting. Instead, my favorite BYOB sushi place is overrun and I guarantee they don't retain all those Groupon customers.

acgourley2• 16 years ago

This article bothers me. The author says that we should check in downtown and announce that we're hungry or need a gift somewhere "and then sit back and watch the discounts roll in."

1) I'm a little tired of tech bloggers stating their own opinion on what a company should be doing as fact. A a little more humility here would be appreciated; they would be high priced consultants if their ideas were so golden.

2) If someone wants food, they're going to pull that information down on a service like yelp. That's a much more appropriate context for offers to be exposed, too. If tons of appealing offers have not surfaced in sites like yelp, why would they appear in LBS services? *

* I'm not saying LBS can't monetize, but the issue is more likely that the local deal / advertising market is not there yet, not that the LBS companies need to hire techcrunch writers for ideas.

doron• 16 years ago

I somewhat support this point of view, from admittedly selfish interests. I dont support advertising schemes online that dont give me (the consumer) something. i.e i expect online advertising to create a system where if I choose to click, I am rewarded with a discount,or some such, otherwise they just impede on my time (and on my phone, its not trivial, ads take longer time to download any content)

Many useful sites and services seem to completely rely on advertising as opposed to the service they actually provide, this is all well and good, but as long as advertising is the same mode of operation it used to be offline (and what did change between offline and online? metrics, nothing much else) i agree with you that I dont think LBS can monetize until the advertising market creates another alternative.

The concept of online advertising is generally a two way, service provider and ad provider, it would be better if it will be a three way, rewarding the consumer as well.

robryan3• 16 years ago

The checkin step then becomes kind of redundant, why would a shop want to hide their discounts to those that physically walk into their shop, wouldn't they prefer someone to either enter in or "check in" to get say a 1 or 2km radius of the deals on offer then decide from that.

Without the game aspect I think actually physically checking in at a location loses appeal as it's not needed for the deals.

anthonycerra• 16 years ago

I can empathize with the sentiment of the article.

I can't understand why you want the blogger to keep his ideas to himself, though. I appreciate these types of articles because, quite frankly, I'm tired of hearing only about the latest round of funding XYZ location-based "game" company raised. It's healthy to question fundamental things like the usefulness of these services.

foljs• 16 years ago

"""A a little more humility here would be appreciated; they would be high priced consultants if their ideas were so golden."""

You'd be surprised to see how many "high priced consultants" have sank companies. Or how many bloggers have had better ideas...

davidamcclain• 16 years ago

Is there any chance that there's bit of a chicken/egg scenario going on here?

Maybe we won't see many coupons for LBS until they have a large enough slice of the retailer's demographic (or just a large enough % of the population) and few people will sign up to use these services if they don't have these coupons.

Facebook on the other hand is a different beast. A massively larger user base and greater brand recognition with companies. How many ads do you see on TV where the URL on the screen is to facebook.com/some-household-brand. Businesses are already savvy to the fact that a great proportion of their customer's traffic is on Facebook. Seems like a small jump to move your coupons from your Facebook page to your location/"Place" on Facebook. Gowalla and Foursquare don't have their foot in the door like Facebook does.

acgourley2• 16 years ago

While FB is on a great trajectory in this space, as of right now I would guess Yelp serves more page views to people looking for information about restaurants. They have some deals but its not extremely compelling.

Two possibilities: Yelp is missing a big opportunity or that opportunity is an illusion; every restaurant doesn't want to offer coupons freely online.

I realize you didn't specifically say restaurants, but if it isn't happening in that extremely competitive industry, why would it happen anywhere else?

SriniK2• 16 years ago

Deja vu all over again. Most of them said same thing about facebook twitter and linkedin. Look where they are now. Agreed foursquare/gowalla need to provide real value for checkins.

I can only sympathize with entrepreneurs on 'what if google did it' and now 'facebook did it'. Till yesterday location services were awesome and now that facebook entered in the space it is bad? Give me a break.

kin• 16 years ago

I can't entirely agree that there is deja vu. When Facebook and LinkedIn came out, there was an immediate market not to mention Facebook's incredible growth, something Foursquare/Gowalla don't have.

When Twitter first came out there was no initial growth and out of nowhere it boomed, which I blame on media and as of now there is no monetary value in Twitter (though technically it's there with all of the information on trends and social impact that can be visualized through Tweets and Twitter as a general Marketing/PR tool).

Foursquare/Gowalla on the other hand, don't offer entirely different from FB Places other than a 'fun' aspect that FB can easily mimic. Till yesterday location services were not awesome. No one really used it. It's inconvenient to use. I don't use it and only 1% of my friends do. Now that FB entered the space yes it is bad because it's even more difficult for people to break out of the shell lest they come up with something to offer.

If it were me, I would throw in a "want to check-in" feature. That way you can express a desire to go somewhere and amass a party to go with you instead of checking in and have people say "oh, that place is cool".

phlux2• 16 years ago

In addition to LBS, I am not so sure Isee the value of gamification, which has taken a lot of attention these days - specifically badging.

Companies that showcased at disrupt showed badging as a feature, and the panels seemed to like companies that did so - even so far as to suggest badging to those who didnt have it.

Reddit has badging, but it is transparent to the use of the site (it is not a goal of using the site). This, to me, works well - but for any site to think that they will garner interest/drive traffic due to badging seems naive.

robryan3• 16 years ago

Can't say badging has ever motivated me outside of gaming and even then some are just highly repetitive to keep you playing. In something like WoW some of the badges actually require you to complete new sections of content and can be fun to acquire.

phlux2• 16 years ago

>In something like WoW...

Yes, but that is a game... badging (or gamification) of activities that are a stretch to be called games... that's what I find odd.

I will not decry these sites/services outright, simply because I have been on the internet since its inception and therefore cannot claim to be able to predict how newly adopting generations will use it.

I personally don't see the value of gamification - but there certainly is the genius site that will make the next killer with it. I don't feel they exist yet. The idea is in its infancy and will be say, 3 generations of companies will we all go "holy shit - that is so obvious!"

smirk• 16 years ago

As mentioned, it's hard to see badging catch on outside of gaming. That said, maybe there should be an effort to make sure it DOES catch on. I wouldn't mind winning cool new prizes at work for meeting or exceeding certain metrics.

mattmanser• 16 years ago

While the article is pretty good, I really didn't like this:

if you’re competing with Facebook in social networking and your name isn’t Twitter or Google, I’m sorry, but I don’t like your chances

Basically, he's saying we should all give up now and go home.

Sod his world view that established players are king.

patio11• 16 years ago

Twitter has done some amazing Jedi mind tricks to convince the media that it has a place in that sentence.

tonystubblebine• 16 years ago

What's the trick? Twitter is useful for the media and Facebook is not. I think it's that simple. You can now write a news article where every quote is pulled from twitter. Nobody is doing that with facebook.

natrius• 16 years ago

That's not what he's saying at all. He's saying your chances aren't good if you're a startup trying to compete with Facebook. This is provably true.

iantimothy• 16 years ago

Maybe, he doesn't like your choices of being king of the hill.

Still, the chance of being acquired for your talent in the social networking space seems pretty high to me...

MicahWedemeyer• 16 years ago

We only hear about the ones that get acquired, not the 1000s that go nowhere. If you're banking on a FB talent acquisition, that's a pretty risky game.

travisjeffery• 16 years ago

No, what he's saying is he doesn't like your chances because your chances aren't good. Period.

sdizdar• 16 years ago

I think these check in services are still in infancy - and neither foursquare nor gowalla fix real-world problems.

For example, my wife and I went for dinner yesterday. We ended up at Pier 39th. Which restaurant to chose? What are the specials? Which ones are open? Any coupons? Prices (meaning actual prices in $$)? Menu? We tried Yelp! - fail (there are ~10 restaurant in Pier 39 but Yelp! was tell us to walk 1 mile). We tried Foursquare - useless.

BTW, I'm experimenting something on http://wall.si but I still don't have clue how to do it right.

fmkamchatka• 16 years ago

Why not have a walk, look at the menus and the atmosphere and let your guts decide?

pyre• 16 years ago

Maybe their guts were telling them, "Food. Here. Now."

pretz• 16 years ago

Sorry, that's because everything on Pier 39 sucks.

aaroneous• 16 years ago

If you're talking about Pier 39 in SF, then Yelp's suggestion to walk a mile away was probably pretty good.

callmeed2• 16 years ago

Was thinking last night: do any of these LBSs have a solid dating component?

It seems to me that some dating-specific features (find and flirt with nearby singles but also maintain privacy) could help increase adoption.

lennysan• 16 years ago

http://www.assistedserendipity.com/

callmeed2• 16 years ago

That's on the right track, but I'm not sure piggybacking one of the networks will work–almost as if they need to do it and promote themselves ... maybe even work out deals with the venues ... if a lady checks in at a bar, she gets a free drink–if a dude checks in, he gets to meet ladies ... just thinking out loud.

Or maybe everyone who is single can wear a shirt with a QR code on it :)

desigooner• 16 years ago

the problem with that site is it doesn't really work as advertised .. in the ideal scenario, you get an alert if Female > Male ratio goes above a certain threshold for places in your town .. however, most of the checkins span across a few hours .. i.e. it's no where close to realtime or where it should be ..

I had an idea about an anonymous dating app per se with focus on women ... no idea how feasible it is but here it goes:

men and women check in to an event or at a club or wherever .. men cannot see details about women beyond a certain basic demographic (age interests etc.) .. men "poke" the women they find interesting, women get the alert, they get to see all dets about the guy and if they think he's interesting, poke back to reveal their details and/or a message. they can take it from there .. ofcourse, this has to catch on for people to really have pick and choose from potential matches ..

now if anyone wants to work on this idea, feel free to .. or hit me up to work on it in detail hah ..

danielharan• 16 years ago

Nearby singles? How about a LBS adult friend finder for discreet encounters?

variety• 16 years ago

http://grindr.com/

philfreo2• 16 years ago

Just looked at Shopkick for the first time and was pretty impressed. I bet they'll do really well.

http://shopkick.com/

philfreo2• 16 years ago

Wow, why all the downvotes? They were mentioned in the article and my comment was genuine.

nir• 16 years ago

Actually most people don't find it much fun, and don't use these apps. TC, NY Times & the rest of the hypeosphere are those pretending these products have any impact.

nickbw• 16 years ago

I think this is the salient point for startups. Painfully contrived "fun" can be a short-term win. Tech press and early adopters like it ... but only because they like being clever enough to appreciate it.

"Look at that, it gave me a badge! Normal people will eat this up!"

But then normal people fail to eat it up, and traffic goes nowhere.

Three possible ways to avoid needing contrived "fun":

1. Be immediately useful. E.g., save people money, or provide excellent search results. This is pretty straight-forward, but tends to require either amazing engineering skills or an actual business model.

2. Be a social obligation. Facebook is home to plenty of third party apps that are desperately projecting contrived fun, but FB itself is rather somber. It doesn't have to be anything else.

3. Actually be fun. This is subtle, difficult, and maddeningly subjective.

RBr• 16 years ago

It's always scary when a sumo sized company like Facebook enters your space. However, there are two things that this article doesn't consider:

1) People like new, shiny and cool. Facebook won't be new, shiny or cool forever. Sure, neither will Foursquare or Gowalla, but you get the idea. Out sumo the sumo and you'll win the next round.

2) Foursqure and Gowalla are interesting social networks, but they're social networks in the loosest form of the term. First and foremost, their functionality is based around engagement and motivation. Users "get something" for "doing something". This was somewhat revolutionary on the web and we haven't even scratched the surface of this.

ry0ohki• 16 years ago

Beerby (http://beerby.com) is the only thing that makes checking into places fun.

andrewhillman• 16 years ago

I just don't think these services will go past the early adoption crowd. I love "social" but telling people where I am worries me. I just think robbers and such will take advantage at some point.

tomotomo2• 16 years ago

I believe they already have.

va_coder• 16 years ago

"they’re not giving us any good reason to use them."

I've been avoiding traffic tickets by using trapster on my iphone.

tkanet• 16 years ago

In just a year or so, we will see the same story about the coupons' madness. How valuable is it to get 10% out of a coffee ? if groupon and daily deal makers do not change the mechanic and move to the next(?) level, it will end up as pure spam. Coupon fatigue just like checkin fatigue

Foursquare, Gowalla ...are simply missing an opportunity to move to that next level of guinuinely discovering places. They havent (yet) found a deeper motivation for checking in (than badges for younger gamers). I recently read a book mapping some modern places (in european cities) with their forgotton history. You could walk to some restaurant in Paris and discover (from the book) that some historical event happened here. Historical view as well as many other angles are possible and could drive attention for mass markets ...and that looks like a guenuine discovery.

I dont believe "check in and get coupons" is really enough

robryan3• 16 years ago

Interestingly one of the big cinema chains in Australia uses bluetooth to send deals to phones when people are at the cinema. Seems to be a decent way to bypass location based stuff altogether, of course you have to authorize the bluetooth connection to your phone.

tomotomo2• 16 years ago

People are slowly realizing location-based + game mechanics is not an automatic win. A lot of people still caught up in the initial hype but for those still betting long on 4sq, I can think of 7 or so ways FourSquare-LBS will play out and only one of them is good for FourSquare: http://www.saigonist.com/content/future-foursquare

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

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