Foursquare will fail
Sunday, November 29, 2009 at 13:02 in Web 2.0 At least in terms of becoming the next Twitter. Sorry to say that. I know people are starting to rave about Twitter but the first really good post came from Jason Kincaid on Techcrunch: Watch out Foursquare, Facebook is Poised To Dominate Geo.
So let me try to explain why I think it will fail, at least in terms of the hype around it at the moment, and there are many points.
A) People will not publish where they are at any time. There is just too much of a security worry. This will remain true and is actually a very wise thing to think about.
B) We already had something very similar with Plazes, it was just missing the game, and as Jason said, the fun of Games dies down.
It's actually very important to take a look at Plazes and their history because they too had many of the then in-the-know Angels onboard, and the entire tech/web2.0 gang was on Plazes. It was a fun system to use and you saw who was where and how close and things like that. But it never grew mainstream and it will be interesting to see if Foursquare manages to do that.
C) I am actually using Foursquare a bit now and I have to say I am still missing the point. I started using it in a travel week and hence am now a newbie in Cologne where I live, in Hamburg and in London. Why the hell did I need to switch cities? I was in a different city but this kind of feels insulting. I AM NO LONGER A NEWBIE ;) Above that I actually didn't know what to do with it. I checked in and then what? In the last few hours somebody I know was somewhere in London. Hmm... so what?
Why is there no "Who is Near?" or "Near places of your friends?" or similar things. Sure it is still very rough and their slow growth on a city per city basis might have been a good idea. But still, I am not sure why I would rave about it and I normally rave way too fast.
D) Location is not a central thing in our lives! We do need an OS for our Computers (Microsoft) or Search for Stuff (Google) or Connect with Friends and Family (Facebook) or Feel connected with OUR community (Twitter, the new worlds IRC Channel ;)). I am not really sure where Foursquare fits into this. If I want to meet friends I will talk to them. Weird stuff, called Phone. ;)
Don't understand me wrong, I do believe Foursquare is fun and nice and things but it is not going to be the next Twitter.
Reader Comments (3)
Oliver-
Interesting post. I would argue that the combo of location and your friends is the powerful combo that foursquare provides. You're right in the location is not the central thing in our lives when it's location alone but adding that information to things we care a lot about, our friends, it does become quite interesting.
Great thoughts. I hope that foursquare becomes more interesting to you.
I think it is great and failure is probably saying too much. But I did see my wife using Facebook and she does. Twitter is still a real stretch and there is no way (at this time) she will use Foursquare. So that's the "fail" I mean. This getting major traction with everyone using it is in my mind unlikely. But boy do I wish you luck. I mean we are in the local space with one of our companies, Ormigo (helping merchants get new customers). I do believe there is still A LOT more possible there.
I am already major in two places and hell, I was major for a few days at the cologne/bonn airport ;)
I agree that Foursquare will fail - but for a completely different reason.
Please see blog post:
http://london-twitter.posterous.com/why-foursqure-rummble-bitly-twitpic-dabr-will