From the verge article - outlining the data behind the decision: http://mobile.theverge.com/2014/5/1/5666062/foursquare-swarm-new-app http://mobile.theverge.com

From the verge article - outlining the data behind the decision: http://mobile.theverge.com/2014/5/1/5666062/foursquare-swarm-new-app http://mobile.theverge.com/2014/5/1/5666062/foursquare-swarm... We looked at the session analysis and saw that only 1 in 20 sessions had both social and discovery," says Noah Weiss, Foursquare’s vice president of product engineering. In other words, just 5 percent of Foursquare’s users were opening it to find friends and find a restaurant. "Why not actually just split those apart, because 19 out of 20 times, tapping on one icon or the other, you have satisfied your need completely," says Weiss. "And as mobile usage has broadened and evolved you get individual experiences instead. You open an app to do a specific task and not as a gateway to a large complicated experience." Having the check-in button as the main interface every time users opened the app created a noticeable hurdle for engagement. "Imagine if you opened up YouTube and the first thing it asked you to do was create a video. That would scare off a lot of people," says Bijan Sabet, one of Foursquare’s early investors and a current board member. "Just like you don’t need to tweet to enjoy Twitter, splitting the app in two will help make it clear to a big audience that you don’t need to check in to find value in Foursquare." ≠================= BTW a lot of the reasoning of the unbundling of features in the mobile app world is very nicely outlined in bill gurley' 's post: http://abovethecrowd.com/2013/07/17/transitioning-to-a-mobile-centric-world/ http://abovethecrowd.com/2013/07/17/transitioning-to-a-mobil...