Foursquare Turns Six, CEO writes blog post about Local

[AarthiD]

Hi everyone,

I didn't see anyone post this on the LSF, so I'm going to share it: Foursquare's CEO, Dennis Crowley, released a blog post today to commemorate 4sq turning 6 years old. While he hat-tips the check-in frenzy, he talks more about predictive location-based services and other hot-button local topics. Check it out:

Six Years In. A Few Thoughts on Foursquare.
By now I?m hoping you saw the news from Twitter about Foursquare powering location-tagging in tweets.

This is a big deal for Foursquare ? not just because we all love Twitter and we?re psyched to be a part of what they?re building, but because it?s yet another example of how ubiquitous the Foursquare platform is becoming ? this ?location layer of the internet? you?ve probably heard us talk about.

As CEO, I spend a lot of my time talking to people about our company and telling the story of what we?re building and where we?re going. I?m always surprised to hear when people in the industry think of us solely as app developers ? ?you?re the company that makes Foursquare and Swarm!?

Well, yes, that?s true. We?ve built these two great apps that millions of people around the world use (50+ million every month across our two apps, our website and mobile web). But the real interesting part of the Foursquare story is all the technology we?ve had to build so that, say, the Foursquare app can ping you to suggest a sandwich shop you?d love as you walk through a neighborhood for the first time, or so the Swarm app can automatically ?snap? you to the place we know you?re about to check in to. There?s a reason that we?re one of the only companies doing proactive and predictive local search and firing off contextual notifications ? it?s hard. And we?re one of the few companies on the planet with the team, technology, and data to pull it off.

You should absolutely click through and read the rest of the post.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks so much Aarthi.

Looks like a great post. Can't wait to read it!

 

[eva evan]

does anyone consider that foursquare is becoming a competitor to Google?

 

[mborgelt]

I think Foursquare and Google have a different focus in the local search sphere. While 4Sq is a robust index of local businesses, I think they are limited to being a hyper-directory at best. For instance, 4Sq doesn't really answer questions in the way that Google does. Also, more people use 4Sq when they are at an event/place instead of using it as a place to find local businesses. I think Foursquare is an incredibly user-friendly directly that allows users to interact with a business but not a local search service (yet).

 

[AarthiD]

I disagree -- I routinely use Foursquare to discover "what's good" around me. I usually find that the ratings on Foursquare are more honest than the ones on Yelp, and the tips are often more helpful than the nonsensical screeds often featured on Yelp or the empty rating info on G+.

I like Foursquare a lot, and it's particularly useful internationally; even in developing nations, with more limited mobile internet access, Foursquare often has location data that might not be elsewhere!

 

[mborgelt]

I completely agree that Foursquare is very useful, however it is very far from replacing or competing with Google as far as local search.

 

[AarthiD]

I absolutely agree -- no way 4sq is ever going to come close to "replacing" Google, haha!

I disagreed that it wasn't useful for location discovery is all; when I first got my smartphone, 4sq made my social life 100% better

 

[mborgelt]

Ah ok now we're on the same sheet of music. I think it's a lot better for social use than G+ and Yelp as well. I think 4Sq is a great hybrid between local directory and social suggestion/user recommendation site. If I ever moved to a new city I would be using it daily for the first few months.

 

[george]

In my experience, Foursquare is a whole lot better than Google, speaking local.
I travel a lot abroad and (almost) ultimately use 4sq for finding what to do and read recommendations. Google hasn't been really helpful so far, and I tend to classify most of the reviews on Google as fake/spam.

Not to mention how much easier is to get things fixed on Foursquare than Google. Superusers are a very active community and 4sq staff are super helpful, too. For example, you don't need to wait months to get a duplicate removed...

Foursquare may never beat Google, but I don't think that's necessary at all.

This said, I'm happy they have partnered up with Twitter on geotagging.

Cheers