I was a (relatively) early adopter to FourSquare. Today FourSquare has over 10M users and I was one of the first two percent (#197,372). I’ve also written about FourSquare here. FourSquare does several things well. The discounts and offerings associated with checking-in have always worked for me and with recent updates they’ve improved the experience. Recently announced partnerships with Groupon and others highlight the importance discounts and deals (and especially location-sensitive
discounts and deals) represent for the burgeoning service. FourSquare has escalated quickly past other location-aware check-in services like Gowalla and Loopt. While these services were once close competitors in terms of users, FourSquare has taken a substantial lead.
The game dynamics of FourSquare surely helped it initially grow and gain acceptance among users and I’m sure there are a myriad of users who still focus in on points, badges, and mayorships, but I’ve personally become more interested in using FourSquare to add context to tweets or other postings to social sites. I’m also interested in capturing check-ins over-time to create mash-ups in the futures.
One area FourSquare hasn’t been successful is expanding the number of connections a user has. Of course users can proactively seek additional connections, but services like LinkedIn have done a better job of pushing potential connections to users thereby expanding the network and increasing the value of the service. As a result I don’t necessarily have many connections in FourSquare nor do I have much motivation to seek out additional connections.
Technology tends to reward first movers. Preferences can change over time and that results in the popularity of some technology services waning, but if tech services are able to remain current it is difficult for up-starts to significantly disrupt incumbents. There are tremendous network effects in technology and as long companies remain relevant, they retain a strong foothold. Despite gaining some ground, MSFT still has a strong hold of productivity software like document editing, spreadsheets, and presentation software in the enterprise and consumer markets as well as strong market share in the Internet browser market. Despite some recent success (with the emphasis on some), Google and others have been unsuccessful in creating a viable competitor for Facebook. LivingSocial and Groupon are winning the emerging daily deals business despite multiple new entries. Google still holds the majority share of search. Certainly tech service leadership does change, but if a given tech service can stay relevant it will be difficult to best. The same is true in location-based check-in services. Facebook recently entered this space with Facebook Places and despite the tremendous popularity of Facebook and the vast user base, my early take was that Facebook would have difficulty finding success in the arena given the foothold of services like FourSquare. This supposition changed for me the other night.
This past week I was in Utah visiting some extended family and showing the kids some of my old college haunts. I took them to CaféRio – a favorite restaurant from college. I checked-in on FourSquare and Andrea checked-in on Facebook Places. After getting our food and finding a table, an old college roommate walked in. He was a few blocks away when his wife saw that we had checked-in so he dropped by to say hello. Here-in is the beauty of a location-based check-in service. Sure the discounts will be an important aspect of the service, but the serendipitous crossings add tremendous value to geo-based social services. I thought Facebook would have difficulty getting into the geo-game. Until now.
