6 ms·

Foursquare's Dennis Crowley can't stop believing

34 points by steven 11y ago

untog 11y ago
I'm not counting FourSquare out yet, just because of the strength of the data they have. Of course, that makes them a very tempting acquisition target, and I expect it'll happen sooner or later.
- EpicEng 11y ago
  Their data is getting more and more stale by the day. They rely on users for that data, so as the users go, so does the relevant data.
smrtinsert 11y ago
That office makes me shudder. I feel like I live in a palace in my cube.
- kzhahou 11y ago
  All the modern "People Operations" research by Google, Facebook, and others, has concluded that the garment industry a hundred years ago had it exactly right: http://ursulinemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/jfco_1-18-1_3feb456327.jpg http://ursulinemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/jfco_...
  - cpncrunch 11y ago
    What research is that? All the research coming out recently has been saying that open plan offices are bad for productivity. http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/30/google-got-it-wrong-the-open-office-trend-is-destroying-the-workplace/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/30/g... There's a big difference between a manual worker and a software developer.
    - k-mcgrady 11y ago
      I think - and hope - the parent is being sarcastic.
      - kzhahou 11y ago
        I wasn't kidding about Google and Facebook. Facebook has been "open plan" since forever, with rows of monitors on long tables, and Google has talked publicly about their research on optimal collaboration environments, which concludes that you need to pack engineers densely so they'll share ideas (and then have some common public space as well). Unfortunately I just spent 5 minutes trying to dig up the original articles, without luck.
        k-mcgrady 11y ago
        Oh yeah, sorry I didn't mean to dismiss that part as sarcasm. I've seen those articles too.
- noer 11y ago
  to each his/her own. I've worked in both settings before and I felt like I was dying in a cube.
  - cpncrunch 11y ago
    I wouldn't work in either. A cube isn't really much/any of an improvement on open plan.
- k-mcgrady 11y ago
  I never thought I'd envy cube workers but having worked in a open office/co-working space I do. I really do.
data_spy 11y ago
I'm counting them out, data from 5 years ago isn't all that useful
- danso 11y ago
  Yeah...It's been less than a year since I've left New York but even then, so many places have closed down/opened up...and this is completely independent of the downtrend in user-supplied data to Foursquare.
exstudent2 11y ago
> A mixture. One of my proudest moments at Foursquare was March 2011 at South By Southwest. In my keynote there, I described it as if we just pulled a Mr. Miyagi on you guys. You think that you’re checking in to get points and badges — and meanwhile we just made an awesome personalized local search engine for you! You think that you’re washing a car but you’re really learning karate! This is what we wanted to do all along. From that moment, Foursquare was about search and recommendations — a smarter search engine that learns about where you go. But by that point, people were so into the game stuff that they either couldn’t see or didn’t see it. This is so incredibly arrogant. It's not that people couldn't see it or didn't see it, it's that they didn't want it. The game features made 4sq unique and fun. People don't want a "personalized local search engine" because there aren't millions of restaurants and bars around where they're at right now. It's just not that big of a problem to find a place to eat and yes, while they do an ok job helping out if you are looking for that, so does Yelp.
- k-mcgrady 11y ago
  I disagree. I don't know anyone who thought that gaming stuff was fun. It was silly and a waste of time. Foursquare now is great at recommendations - something people actually need. I don't think it was necessary to rip the checkins out of it and into Swarm but I think the people who actually found that fun and a vocal minority.
  - exstudent2 11y ago
    My anecdotes are the complete opposite of yours :) My friends loved checking in and earning badges and none of them think the recommendations are great.
    - k-mcgrady 11y ago
      :) Strange. I don't understand why they split the app. If they kept it together all our friends could have been happy.
      - 11y ago
mhomde 11y ago
If I were Foursquare I'd admit defeat, drop Swarm, do a big push to relaunch Foursquare with a new app (if nothing else just to get people interested again) and think really hard about a killer feature to lure people back into the app. One aspect that's really underplayed I think they could go with as a complement is diary and life tracking. It could be very interesting to have as an experience where you could relive where you've been and done.
- blahwoop 11y ago
  you mean what Timehop does?
  - mhomde 11y ago
    Timehop is pretty limited in its scope, I'd do a fullblown diary & life tracker
jgalt212 11y ago
It's hard not to hate on foursquare at this point. I mean how much press and mind share have they squandered that could have been better used by other start ups trying to get over the hump.
eldude 11y ago
I can't help but feel that releasing Swarm was akin to giving someone a lateral "promotion" within an org to remove them from a space you don't want them in any longer, like Milton being moved into the basement in Office Space. They wanted to pivot, but with check-in so core to their identity, they had to move it to the basement so the rest of the core app could flourish. Does anyone here actively use Swarm or any other Ambient Social Network? Why & what is your take? Like the various other Ambient Social Networking apps that came before it (Highlight, Sonar, Banjo), it would seem to suffer from a severe chicken and egg problem.
- nmcfarl 11y ago
  I use swarm, and the reason I use it is timehop. The ambient social networking is a side benefit, that ramped up following my adoption of foursquare, and is slowly tailing off as everyone drops swarm. It's nice as a source of real time recommendations from people you trust, and as a source of small talk, however it's not that important to me. But tracking myself from a year ago is generally rewarding.
- makeset 11y ago
  I've been trying to use Swarm because I have friends who do, but the interface is so atrociously bad, they should fire that designer and sue for damages. Months later I still have no fucking idea which icon does what, I just tap random things until something happens. And it doesn't allow private check-ins, so it discourages me from checking-in somewhere unless I want to broadcast it to all of my friends. Do they want my data or not?
hobarrera 11y ago
The split between foursquare and swarm was awful. It was rather useless, and all my friends that used foursquare dropped it at that moment. I myself dropped it because the new version required me to install Google Play Services/Framework - something I had no interest in doing. I currently don't know anybody who uses foursquare. The "game" part faded, and the "finding a place" part moved over to Yelp.

34 points by steven 11y ago

untog 11y ago

I'm not counting FourSquare out yet, just because of the strength of the data they have. Of course, that makes them a very tempting acquisition target, and I expect it'll happen sooner or later.

EpicEng 11y ago
Their data is getting more and more stale by the day. They rely on users for that data, so as the users go, so does the relevant data.

smrtinsert 11y ago

That office makes me shudder. I feel like I live in a palace in my cube.

kzhahou 11y ago
All the modern "People Operations" research by Google, Facebook, and others, has concluded that the garment industry a hundred years ago had it exactly right: http://ursulinemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/jfco_1-18-1_3feb456327.jpg http://ursulinemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/jfco_...
- cpncrunch 11y ago
  What research is that? All the research coming out recently has been saying that open plan offices are bad for productivity. http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/30/google-got-it-wrong-the-open-office-trend-is-destroying-the-workplace/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/30/g... There's a big difference between a manual worker and a software developer.
  - k-mcgrady 11y ago
    I think - and hope - the parent is being sarcastic.
    - kzhahou 11y ago
      I wasn't kidding about Google and Facebook. Facebook has been "open plan" since forever, with rows of monitors on long tables, and Google has talked publicly about their research on optimal collaboration environments, which concludes that you need to pack engineers densely so they'll share ideas (and then have some common public space as well). Unfortunately I just spent 5 minutes trying to dig up the original articles, without luck.
      - k-mcgrady 11y ago
        Oh yeah, sorry I didn't mean to dismiss that part as sarcasm. I've seen those articles too.
noer 11y ago
to each his/her own. I've worked in both settings before and I felt like I was dying in a cube.
- cpncrunch 11y ago
  I wouldn't work in either. A cube isn't really much/any of an improvement on open plan.
k-mcgrady 11y ago
I never thought I'd envy cube workers but having worked in a open office/co-working space I do. I really do.

data_spy 11y ago

I'm counting them out, data from 5 years ago isn't all that useful

danso 11y ago
Yeah...It's been less than a year since I've left New York but even then, so many places have closed down/opened up...and this is completely independent of the downtrend in user-supplied data to Foursquare.

exstudent2 11y ago

> A mixture. One of my proudest moments at Foursquare was March 2011 at South By Southwest. In my keynote there, I described it as if we just pulled a Mr. Miyagi on you guys. You think that you’re checking in to get points and badges — and meanwhile we just made an awesome personalized local search engine for you! You think that you’re washing a car but you’re really learning karate! This is what we wanted to do all along. From that moment, Foursquare was about search and recommendations — a smarter search engine that learns about where you go. But by that point, people were so into the game stuff that they either couldn’t see or didn’t see it. This is so incredibly arrogant. It's not that people couldn't see it or didn't see it, it's that they didn't want it. The game features made 4sq unique and fun. People don't want a "personalized local search engine" because there aren't millions of restaurants and bars around where they're at right now. It's just not that big of a problem to find a place to eat and yes, while they do an ok job helping out if you are looking for that, so does Yelp.

k-mcgrady 11y ago
I disagree. I don't know anyone who thought that gaming stuff was fun. It was silly and a waste of time. Foursquare now is great at recommendations - something people actually need. I don't think it was necessary to rip the checkins out of it and into Swarm but I think the people who actually found that fun and a vocal minority.
- exstudent2 11y ago
  My anecdotes are the complete opposite of yours :) My friends loved checking in and earning badges and none of them think the recommendations are great.
  - k-mcgrady 11y ago
    :) Strange. I don't understand why they split the app. If they kept it together all our friends could have been happy.
    - 11y ago

mhomde 11y ago

If I were Foursquare I'd admit defeat, drop Swarm, do a big push to relaunch Foursquare with a new app (if nothing else just to get people interested again) and think really hard about a killer feature to lure people back into the app. One aspect that's really underplayed I think they could go with as a complement is diary and life tracking. It could be very interesting to have as an experience where you could relive where you've been and done.

blahwoop 11y ago
you mean what Timehop does?
- mhomde 11y ago
  Timehop is pretty limited in its scope, I'd do a fullblown diary & life tracker

jgalt212 11y ago

It's hard not to hate on foursquare at this point. I mean how much press and mind share have they squandered that could have been better used by other start ups trying to get over the hump.

eldude 11y ago

I can't help but feel that releasing Swarm was akin to giving someone a lateral "promotion" within an org to remove them from a space you don't want them in any longer, like Milton being moved into the basement in Office Space. They wanted to pivot, but with check-in so core to their identity, they had to move it to the basement so the rest of the core app could flourish. Does anyone here actively use Swarm or any other Ambient Social Network? Why & what is your take? Like the various other Ambient Social Networking apps that came before it (Highlight, Sonar, Banjo), it would seem to suffer from a severe chicken and egg problem.

nmcfarl 11y ago
I use swarm, and the reason I use it is timehop. The ambient social networking is a side benefit, that ramped up following my adoption of foursquare, and is slowly tailing off as everyone drops swarm. It's nice as a source of real time recommendations from people you trust, and as a source of small talk, however it's not that important to me. But tracking myself from a year ago is generally rewarding.
makeset 11y ago
I've been trying to use Swarm because I have friends who do, but the interface is so atrociously bad, they should fire that designer and sue for damages. Months later I still have no fucking idea which icon does what, I just tap random things until something happens. And it doesn't allow private check-ins, so it discourages me from checking-in somewhere unless I want to broadcast it to all of my friends. Do they want my data or not?

hobarrera 11y ago

The split between foursquare and swarm was awful. It was rather useless, and all my friends that used foursquare dropped it at that moment. I myself dropped it because the new version required me to install Google Play Services/Framework - something I had no interest in doing. I currently don't know anybody who uses foursquare. The "game" part faded, and the "finding a place" part moved over to Yelp.