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That's the point. Everyone thinks of them as a "useless check-in app"; they decided they had to do something drastic for people to take notice of their (awesome

That's the point. Everyone thinks of them as a "useless check-in app"; they decided they had to do something drastic for people to take notice of their (awesome) location discovery platform. Foursquare has huge brand recognition, and it would take a long time to build that up for their new app (which will be the way 4Sq makes money going forward). EDIT: Put the word useless inside the quotes rather than outside — I like 4sq!

jusben1369 12y ago
It's interesting and I agree with you about their huge brand recognition. Unfortunately, they have a lot of negativity around the brand. Just look at the comments here around "horrible vanity app" etc. I wonder if they shouldn't have left Foursquare as the Check In app and had the "Swarm" equivalent be the new search and recommendation engine. They could have gotten most folks to move I suspect and not have to deal with all the negativity around the Foursquare app. Personally I love a pivot so I hope they're successful either way. I've started using it for discovery when traveling and think it has legs.
gdilla 12y ago
Check-ins have been valuable to them in so far as data and intelligence. It hasn't been valuable to them as something to monetize off of enough to satisfy investors. Hence the pivot in the hopes of more Yelp like ad revenue. But I wouldn't say check-ins are useless - they do help users in various ways when applied right.
- gkoberger 12y ago
  Oh sorry, I should have included "useless" in quotes. I personally love Foursqare checkins -- I love seeing which of my friends have checked in at places I'm considering, I love having a history of where I've been, etc.
untog 12y ago
But the article itself states that the Foursquare name is associated with checkins. I don't argue with splitting it in two, but I'm confused about why they made checkins 'Swarm' and are trying to transition the checkin-associated name of Foursquare.

jusben1369 12y ago

It's interesting and I agree with you about their huge brand recognition. Unfortunately, they have a lot of negativity around the brand. Just look at the comments here around "horrible vanity app" etc. I wonder if they shouldn't have left Foursquare as the Check In app and had the "Swarm" equivalent be the new search and recommendation engine. They could have gotten most folks to move I suspect and not have to deal with all the negativity around the Foursquare app. Personally I love a pivot so I hope they're successful either way. I've started using it for discovery when traveling and think it has legs.

gdilla 12y ago

Check-ins have been valuable to them in so far as data and intelligence. It hasn't been valuable to them as something to monetize off of enough to satisfy investors. Hence the pivot in the hopes of more Yelp like ad revenue. But I wouldn't say check-ins are useless - they do help users in various ways when applied right.

gkoberger 12y ago
Oh sorry, I should have included "useless" in quotes. I personally love Foursqare checkins -- I love seeing which of my friends have checked in at places I'm considering, I love having a history of where I've been, etc.

untog 12y ago

But the article itself states that the Foursquare name is associated with checkins. I don't argue with splitting it in two, but I'm confused about why they made checkins 'Swarm' and are trying to transition the checkin-associated name of Foursquare.