Comments on: FourSquare and Social Business Design

By: Marla Erwin

Marla Erwin — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:05:20 +0000

I agree that Foursquare has enormous *promise* to change the way businesses interact with their customers. However, the service seems to be stagnating, and I am seeing just as many people abandon it as new ones sign up.

There are currently two reasons to join: communicate your whereabouts to meet up with your friends, or play the game to get points and mayorships. For younger, single, urban users, both are powerful draws. For others (married people with kids, for example, like me) the appeal is thinner: we’re not out at night looking for friends to meet up with, so mayorships and badges are all that’s left — and with no payoff in sight, that loses its thrill pretty quickly. In the end, checking in became just another chore.

Everyone seems to have great ideas about the potential of Foursquare, except Foursquare themselves. They must convince more businesses, especially nationwide chains, to adopt a loyalty rewards program tied to checkins and/or mayorships. Until then, people will drop it as soon as they realize there’s no reward.

By: Don Gaines

Don Gaines — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:24:55 +0000

I totally see it. I just wish Foursquare had less kitschy design. It’s kind of ugly to me, personal pet peeve. I’ve often pondered if we couldn’t use this type of system as a ‘clock-in’ type of system. Say the big boss wants to know when everyone’s getting in and we just check-in whenever we get somewhere. That’s a little big brother-ish and would require a lot of trust, but is there a potential for it to have more of an employee monitoring effect? More than facebook or twitter have already?

By: Duane Brown

Duane Brown — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:29:03 +0000

Great post Peter. I see where you’re going with this and there is an opportunity but scaling will be a major issue as you mentioned. If we can find a way around that…. and I’m sure we could. This could be a really fun white label app for company’s the size of Google, Apple, Pixar… that have people spread out across the globe or country.

By: David Gehring

David Gehring — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:25:45 +0000

I drank the coolaid on this one already, and am someone who was slow to start using Twitter; still have a Blackberry instead of an iPhone and really don’t go pub crawling anymore now with a wife and two kids. The value of this sort of app to the stroller class is huge. And that class buys most of what’s sold in the US today!

By: Andrea McLaughlin

Andrea McLaughlin — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:14:27 +0000

As a small business owner and intrepid early-adopter of all things tech, I started with the gut feeling that Foursquare could be not only fun and social but also its location based check-in will be useful to small local business in both the B2B and B2C realms. For my B2C uses it needs critical mass and we’re not there yet for my retail photo business. I”m still the mayor and only check in to my Berkeley location. As soon as I start seeing customers checking in from my location I’ll implement a flash sale: “check-in and get 20% off on a canvas wrap (or whatever)”

I also see B2B exchanges between businesses that share customers : “check in 10 times at the photo lab and get 2 free passes to the photo exhibit at SFMOMA”

By: Sam Eder

Sam Eder — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:03:03 +0000

I think that FourSquare embodies the promise of social business by not only enticing members to participate (whether to merely communicate or to pursue a prize) but also seamlessly and unobtrusively working in a revenue stream.

Now I’ll go back to work, trying to become the Mayor of Annie’s.

By: Lee Provoost

Lee Provoost — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:51:39 +0000

Exactly, to add to Rick’s comment (Hi Rick! ), check this Mashable article: http://mashable.com/2009/09/21/foursquare-for-business/

By: Rick Mans

Rick Mans — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:39:23 +0000

Nice read Peter, I fully agree with. I wrote a somewhere likewise piece last month about how location information within Twitter would create new markets and new businesses. Foursquare is one of the applications that instantly shows great value for businesses:

The article: http://dontmindrick.com/featured/foursquare-might-end-the-recession-for-you/