6 ms·

Facebook Just Bowed Out of the Check In War With Foursquare

76 points by taylorbuley 15y ago

kessler 15y ago
Curious to see where they move check-in and location integrations. I've noticed they've been using my foursquare data to show me "Which place do you like better?" in the sidebar. They could do a lot more recommending of places like restaurants, bars, stores, and tie in deals.
- nbm 15y ago
  As described in https://www.facebook.com/about/location https://www.facebook.com/about/location, you will soon be able to "check-in" by attaching a location/venue and tagging the people you are with to any status update, whether it is text or a photo or a video - and you can now do it from your computer, rather than just from your smart phone.
kin 15y ago
Did they publicly announce that they are getting rid of Facebook places? My circle of friends are still checking-in everywhere via Facebook. On a side note I use Facebook check-ins over Foursquare because of the tagging feature.
- FireBeyond 15y ago
  Read the comments on the article for a far better analysis / explanation than the article itself. In fact, checking in will still be around, and location info will be able to be attached to -any- content on FB.
  - bproper 15y ago
    When they launched places, the explicitly copied Foursquare and the check-in model. Zuckerberg named dropped Foursquare at the unveiling of Places. They are now getting rid of Places. From the Foursquare blog post: "As a part of this, we are phasing out the mobile-only Places feature. Settings associated with it are also being phased out or removed. (You can read more about how location works and settings affected here: http://www.facebook.com/about/location) http://www.facebook.com/about/location) Yes, location will still be part of Facebook, as noted by Betabeat. But it will not be executed with the "check-in" model foursquare pioneered. The new way will be closer to tagging a user in a Google+ conversation.
Yhippa 15y ago
I actually found Facebook's check in functionality to generate more discussion among friends than Foursquare. The big problem from me is that I wish they could have come up with a better way to restrict who I'm showing where I'm at similar to Google+ circles.
- nbm 15y ago
  With the new location changes described at https://www.facebook.com/about/location https://www.facebook.com/about/location (which will start rolling out soon), you can attach a location to any status update, and this means you can use the status update privacy controls to control who see where you are - for example, using a friend list to only share with a subset of your friends.
bproper 15y ago
According to Jay Yarow, Facebook is quietly phasing out Places. Instead any status update can be tagged with location. http://www.businessinsider.com/foursquare-facebook-2011-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/foursquare-facebook-2011-8 MG Siegler Confirms - http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/23/facebook-location-tagging/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/23/facebook-location-tagging/
- brg 15y ago
  "Phasing out" sounds like the incorrect term. If places are part of status updates it sounds like "making integral in the product."
taylorbuley 15y ago
Not quite sure Foursquare is in a better position now that Facebook is bowing out. Is it possible this means there's no market to be had?
- acavailhez 15y ago
  I was wondering about the same thing. The article is extremely enthousiast about Foursquare, which I had stopped to use over Facebook. Foursquare adds a gaming layer to check-ins, which tends to get boring with time. Facebook however adds its social layer, with the ability to passively say "Hey I'm there", and actually be read by people who might care.
- damoncali 15y ago
  I've always thought the math on this was sketchy. Where are there enough users concentrated to make checkins commercially useful? I just can't see it, but I reserve the right to be totally, completely, wrong.
  - jstrate 15y ago
    How about a conference? Music festival? I was at Outside Lands in GG park a few weekends ago and (given the price of a 3-day pass was $200) there were plenty of location aware smartphones used by ~60k people.
    - damoncali 15y ago
      Yeah, I suppose, but how do you get from that to the multi-hundred million dollar exits demanded by the investors on these deals? Compare those 60k on one day to the multiple millions every day that read local newspapers sites. How do you make something more and more and more local without reducing the number of people who care about it to near zero? For example, at a conference like SXSW, you have x-thousand attendees with their smart phones. You can track where they all go for the whole event. But the number of people who would find that data useful (by my way of thinking at least) is quite small - the local vendors, the other attendees (who won't pay a dime for the service), who else? How do you sell it to them and how much can you get? How do you monetize that in a way that isn't just glorified banner ads to a small market segment? How do you make it HUGE? That's where I have trouble.
aloneinkyoto 15y ago
Facebook Places is the feature I've been using the most on Facebook since it was introduced. And I can probably say the same thing about the rest of my circle of friends. It is very sad if they are intentionally going to limit such an awesome and well designed feature (way, way better than anything Foursquare, Gowalla or Twitter offers). Especially if they are going to require you to attach a status message or photo to every check in. Most check ins I do is simply to passively tell my friends where I am to coordinate social gatherings in an informal way without having to attach any greater meaning or social significance to the fact. I'm sharing my location. I might not necessarily be interested in sharing anything more than that. It's a bit like saying: "Oh, by the way. I might be hanging out down at the bar tonight. Swing by if you feel like it". Without actually having to say it out loud. edit: The more I think about this, the more angry I get. It feels like the Google+ nerd mafia is slowly destroying Facebook through bad influence. They simply don't understand how and why Facebook works and is popular. The whole privacy and circles stuff for example, which is just stupid. No normal person cares about that. Facebook is a tool for sharing and connecting and to limit that in the name of privacy is insanely counterproductive. It only adds a wet blanket of politics on something that is better understood through social psychology and sociology. Facebook used to understand that, but now it seems they've started to become distracted. Sad really.
- Gustomaximus 15y ago
  I like the circles concept. It is not about privacy, it is that my family wants to see endless photos of my child while my friends don't. IMO is more about courtesy than privacy/politics.
  - aloneinkyoto 15y ago
    But that is exactly what is counterproductive about it. Because it forces you to make assumptions about the people you interact with. Have you asked all of your friends wether or not they might find your family photos interesting or not? Do you think there is no value in being exposed to things that is beyond your comfort zone? I might be a 25 year old party animal that doesn't care shit about family life. But seeing the odd family photo or two in my feed now and then might perhaps be good for me? And I might even enjoy it, even if I don't want to readily admit it to my self. There is also the dimension of making the social realm more "democratic". In the sense that it is a good thing if people are not intentionally excluded from social contexts. It helps create a more tolerant society and more robust and flexible social networks if the interaction in the networks are less clustered (something a hacker, with knowledge about how the internet works should be able to appreciate). The somewhat technical explanation is that what Google is doing is implementing something very similar to "Social role theory" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role_Theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role_Theory), which emphasizes social roles as the defining characteristic used to understand social interaction. While Facebook rather is implementing something more akin to "Symbolic interaction theory" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_interaction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_interaction).
robryan 15y ago
Weird, within my social group foursquare has hardly been used but Facebook places is regularly. I use it but have no intention to maintain a separate social profile just for it.
endlessvoid94 15y ago
Posting a status update with a location tag is the same thing as checking in at that location. You can tag people in your status updates, and coupled with a location, you can still tag people in with you. The functionality that foursquare (and apps utilizing foursquare's API) offer are still possible, perhaps even easier. Facebook is still going to win this part of the "war".
- mrmaddog 15y ago
  Exactly. Facebook is not exiting the location game, but rather opening it up to a much broader audience. I presume Facebook found that the people who used check-ins was a subset of the people that used tagging functionality, so they scrapped the check-in model and focused on making location accessible in a format that a) more people are comfortable with and b) is consistent with the rest of the Facebook experience.
baguasquirrel 15y ago
I wonder how much of this is due to Facebook deciding that location check-ins aren't that big a deal. Most of my friends still don't "get" what is the big deal with this.
- de90 15y ago
  Because quite frankly they aren't a big deal right now. Yes, of course it has a huge potential benefit, but it's not there. So why should they care about it.
bialecki 15y ago
Wait, without the checkin, what happens to Facebook Deals? This doesn't make a lot of sense, they must be removing it to relaunch it.
EponymousCoward 15y ago
Bowed out of the checkin-war? How about just WON the check-in war by making it an integral feature and de-productizing it out from under 4square et al's feet?
geofflewis 15y ago
The analysis in this article is just plain wrong, starting with the headline. Incorporating location-tagging directly into the status update UI (and extending the ability to tag a location to photos and videos), does not mean Facebook is bowing out of any "war"... It means they are honing in on the right location feature set for their userbase, rather than simply copying Foursquare. I predict location-tagging of status updates and content will gain massive adoption within Facebook and quickly dwarf Facebook Check-In, which by the way, is staying part of Facebook's mobile apps (at least for now).
dkrich 15y ago
I don't think this signals a victory for Foursquare. Do they even make any money? I don't use the service myself, but my only interaction with it is rampant annoying updates from people I barely even know on Facebook. I never thought the "check-in" was a terribly useful feature anyway, but more of a cool new display of the power of geolocation. I always thought it would be far more useful to build these services out as a way to allow people to quickly find each other in one-to-one, as opposed to unsolicited one-to-many, updates. For example, I think a more common use case would be to pull out a phone and alongside a contact have a single button to query for location, then on the other end have the user just as easily transmit his or her location. That would fix the privacy concerns as well.
abava 15y ago
just for shame-less plug: we provided badges functionality via mashup with FB API: http://qrpon.linkstore.ru http://qrpon.linkstore.ru

76 points by taylorbuley 15y ago

Curious to see where they move check-in and location integrations. I've noticed they've been using my foursquare data to show me "Which place do you like better?" in the sidebar. They could do a lot more recommending of places like restaurants, bars, stores, and tie in deals.

nbm 15y ago
As described in https://www.facebook.com/about/location https://www.facebook.com/about/location, you will soon be able to "check-in" by attaching a location/venue and tagging the people you are with to any status update, whether it is text or a photo or a video - and you can now do it from your computer, rather than just from your smart phone.

kin 15y ago

Did they publicly announce that they are getting rid of Facebook places? My circle of friends are still checking-in everywhere via Facebook. On a side note I use Facebook check-ins over Foursquare because of the tagging feature.

FireBeyond 15y ago
Read the comments on the article for a far better analysis / explanation than the article itself. In fact, checking in will still be around, and location info will be able to be attached to -any- content on FB.
- bproper 15y ago
  When they launched places, the explicitly copied Foursquare and the check-in model. Zuckerberg named dropped Foursquare at the unveiling of Places. They are now getting rid of Places. From the Foursquare blog post: "As a part of this, we are phasing out the mobile-only Places feature. Settings associated with it are also being phased out or removed. (You can read more about how location works and settings affected here: http://www.facebook.com/about/location) http://www.facebook.com/about/location) Yes, location will still be part of Facebook, as noted by Betabeat. But it will not be executed with the "check-in" model foursquare pioneered. The new way will be closer to tagging a user in a Google+ conversation.

Yhippa 15y ago

I actually found Facebook's check in functionality to generate more discussion among friends than Foursquare. The big problem from me is that I wish they could have come up with a better way to restrict who I'm showing where I'm at similar to Google+ circles.

nbm 15y ago
With the new location changes described at https://www.facebook.com/about/location https://www.facebook.com/about/location (which will start rolling out soon), you can attach a location to any status update, and this means you can use the status update privacy controls to control who see where you are - for example, using a friend list to only share with a subset of your friends.

bproper 15y ago

According to Jay Yarow, Facebook is quietly phasing out Places. Instead any status update can be tagged with location. http://www.businessinsider.com/foursquare-facebook-2011-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/foursquare-facebook-2011-8 MG Siegler Confirms - http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/23/facebook-location-tagging/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/23/facebook-location-tagging/

brg 15y ago
"Phasing out" sounds like the incorrect term. If places are part of status updates it sounds like "making integral in the product."

taylorbuley 15y ago

Not quite sure Foursquare is in a better position now that Facebook is bowing out. Is it possible this means there's no market to be had?

acavailhez 15y ago
I was wondering about the same thing. The article is extremely enthousiast about Foursquare, which I had stopped to use over Facebook. Foursquare adds a gaming layer to check-ins, which tends to get boring with time. Facebook however adds its social layer, with the ability to passively say "Hey I'm there", and actually be read by people who might care.
damoncali 15y ago
I've always thought the math on this was sketchy. Where are there enough users concentrated to make checkins commercially useful? I just can't see it, but I reserve the right to be totally, completely, wrong.
- jstrate 15y ago
  How about a conference? Music festival? I was at Outside Lands in GG park a few weekends ago and (given the price of a 3-day pass was $200) there were plenty of location aware smartphones used by ~60k people.
  - damoncali 15y ago
    Yeah, I suppose, but how do you get from that to the multi-hundred million dollar exits demanded by the investors on these deals? Compare those 60k on one day to the multiple millions every day that read local newspapers sites. How do you make something more and more and more local without reducing the number of people who care about it to near zero? For example, at a conference like SXSW, you have x-thousand attendees with their smart phones. You can track where they all go for the whole event. But the number of people who would find that data useful (by my way of thinking at least) is quite small - the local vendors, the other attendees (who won't pay a dime for the service), who else? How do you sell it to them and how much can you get? How do you monetize that in a way that isn't just glorified banner ads to a small market segment? How do you make it HUGE? That's where I have trouble.

aloneinkyoto 15y ago

Facebook Places is the feature I've been using the most on Facebook since it was introduced. And I can probably say the same thing about the rest of my circle of friends. It is very sad if they are intentionally going to limit such an awesome and well designed feature (way, way better than anything Foursquare, Gowalla or Twitter offers). Especially if they are going to require you to attach a status message or photo to every check in. Most check ins I do is simply to passively tell my friends where I am to coordinate social gatherings in an informal way without having to attach any greater meaning or social significance to the fact. I'm sharing my location. I might not necessarily be interested in sharing anything more than that. It's a bit like saying: "Oh, by the way. I might be hanging out down at the bar tonight. Swing by if you feel like it". Without actually having to say it out loud. edit: The more I think about this, the more angry I get. It feels like the Google+ nerd mafia is slowly destroying Facebook through bad influence. They simply don't understand how and why Facebook works and is popular. The whole privacy and circles stuff for example, which is just stupid. No normal person cares about that. Facebook is a tool for sharing and connecting and to limit that in the name of privacy is insanely counterproductive. It only adds a wet blanket of politics on something that is better understood through social psychology and sociology. Facebook used to understand that, but now it seems they've started to become distracted. Sad really.

Gustomaximus 15y ago
I like the circles concept. It is not about privacy, it is that my family wants to see endless photos of my child while my friends don't. IMO is more about courtesy than privacy/politics.
- aloneinkyoto 15y ago
  But that is exactly what is counterproductive about it. Because it forces you to make assumptions about the people you interact with. Have you asked all of your friends wether or not they might find your family photos interesting or not? Do you think there is no value in being exposed to things that is beyond your comfort zone? I might be a 25 year old party animal that doesn't care shit about family life. But seeing the odd family photo or two in my feed now and then might perhaps be good for me? And I might even enjoy it, even if I don't want to readily admit it to my self. There is also the dimension of making the social realm more "democratic". In the sense that it is a good thing if people are not intentionally excluded from social contexts. It helps create a more tolerant society and more robust and flexible social networks if the interaction in the networks are less clustered (something a hacker, with knowledge about how the internet works should be able to appreciate). The somewhat technical explanation is that what Google is doing is implementing something very similar to "Social role theory" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role_Theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role_Theory), which emphasizes social roles as the defining characteristic used to understand social interaction. While Facebook rather is implementing something more akin to "Symbolic interaction theory" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_interaction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_interaction).

robryan 15y ago

Weird, within my social group foursquare has hardly been used but Facebook places is regularly. I use it but have no intention to maintain a separate social profile just for it.

endlessvoid94 15y ago

Posting a status update with a location tag is the same thing as checking in at that location. You can tag people in your status updates, and coupled with a location, you can still tag people in with you. The functionality that foursquare (and apps utilizing foursquare's API) offer are still possible, perhaps even easier. Facebook is still going to win this part of the "war".

mrmaddog 15y ago
Exactly. Facebook is not exiting the location game, but rather opening it up to a much broader audience. I presume Facebook found that the people who used check-ins was a subset of the people that used tagging functionality, so they scrapped the check-in model and focused on making location accessible in a format that a) more people are comfortable with and b) is consistent with the rest of the Facebook experience.

baguasquirrel 15y ago

I wonder how much of this is due to Facebook deciding that location check-ins aren't that big a deal. Most of my friends still don't "get" what is the big deal with this.

de90 15y ago
Because quite frankly they aren't a big deal right now. Yes, of course it has a huge potential benefit, but it's not there. So why should they care about it.

bialecki 15y ago

Wait, without the checkin, what happens to Facebook Deals? This doesn't make a lot of sense, they must be removing it to relaunch it.

EponymousCoward 15y ago

Bowed out of the checkin-war? How about just WON the check-in war by making it an integral feature and de-productizing it out from under 4square et al's feet?

geofflewis 15y ago

The analysis in this article is just plain wrong, starting with the headline. Incorporating location-tagging directly into the status update UI (and extending the ability to tag a location to photos and videos), does not mean Facebook is bowing out of any "war"... It means they are honing in on the right location feature set for their userbase, rather than simply copying Foursquare. I predict location-tagging of status updates and content will gain massive adoption within Facebook and quickly dwarf Facebook Check-In, which by the way, is staying part of Facebook's mobile apps (at least for now).

dkrich 15y ago

I don't think this signals a victory for Foursquare. Do they even make any money? I don't use the service myself, but my only interaction with it is rampant annoying updates from people I barely even know on Facebook. I never thought the "check-in" was a terribly useful feature anyway, but more of a cool new display of the power of geolocation. I always thought it would be far more useful to build these services out as a way to allow people to quickly find each other in one-to-one, as opposed to unsolicited one-to-many, updates. For example, I think a more common use case would be to pull out a phone and alongside a contact have a single button to query for location, then on the other end have the user just as easily transmit his or her location. That would fix the privacy concerns as well.

abava 15y ago

just for shame-less plug: we provided badges functionality via mashup with FB API: http://qrpon.linkstore.ru http://qrpon.linkstore.ru