Everyone knows that I am constantly discovering new places, exploring new cities, meeting new people. I am always sharing tips on new restaurants I’ve found, new bars I’ve tried, or just where to get a decent cup of coffee. Foursquare has always proved useful in managing the places I’ve been to and sharing that information with others. I also just think its fun to use, but I’m a social media geek.
So who uses foursquare in the UK? Social media geeks. Design nerds. PR and advertising types.
Who doesn’t use Foursquare in the UK? Businesses. Average consumers.
Ok, that’s not entirely true, but the number of businesses in the UK embracing Foursquare appears to be significantly smaller than those using Twitter or Facebook. Further, the large partnerships just don’t exist here like they do in New York. Foursquare has its headquarters in New York, so it’s easy to see how they would develop a strong presence there. It’s also pretty big in San Francisco, where they have recently opened a second office, but so is every shiny startup with decent funding. I really like the service and I can identify with what they are trying to achieve– helping people ‘unlock’ their cities — but until recently, I couldn’t figure out their strategy or understand where their revenue came from.
So I e-mailed Dennis Crowley, co-founder of Foursquare, to ask if I could stop by for an office visit about a year ago. I was actually pretty surprised I got a reply:
“ah, most of us are out of town thru 1/4! when you taking off?”
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it, but I said perhaps we could work something out next time, Dennis kindly responded:
“you bet! hoping to make it to london soon!”
This past December, I decided to give it another go. This time, however, I wasn’t able to reach Mr. Crowley. In all fairness, Foursquare has grown significantly over the past year. Undeterred, I decided to swing by their offices in the East Village, NYC. I went to sign in (after I’d checked-in, of course) at the rather unassuming reception desk. “You don’t need to sign in for Foursquare, just take the elevator up.” Little did I realise that as the doors opened up, I’d be standing in the middle of their office. I asked around a bit and was directed to a member of Foursquare’s PR team who was exceedingly supportive in my fact-finding mission.
Branded badges and partnerships generate revenue. You can’t walk around New York without coming into contact with Foursquare. Every time I took a taxi, I saw a tie-up with Foursquare and People Magazine. Citibank has a giant display showing how many users had checked in at the bank. Huge brands like Pepsi, Starbucks, Tasti D-Lite and more are embracing Foursquare and rewarding users for their loyalty.
People Magazine and Foursquare - taxi advertisement.
Checking-in at the bank.
Foursquare plans on internationalising. Look out for versions of the site/app in new languages that should help increase adoption in Europe and South America.
Experimenting with targeted promotions. Go to to the gym every day at noon and then over to that big-name grocery store? Perhaps next time you’ll get an offer on sports drinks when you check-in. Catch that morning brew on your way to work every morning? Perhaps now you’ll get on offer on food to go with it. We discussed deals based on the times of your check-ins, but it sounded like they have a lot of different models in the works. The possibilities based on your daily habits and your social graph are really exciting. How about deals that, based on your preferences, you’re likely to enjoy? How about discounts for bringing a group of people together and collectively checking-in? Or taking that further, when friends check-in nearby one another, they all get a deal for a mutual location? Exciting stuff.
Unfortunately, none of this is happening across the pond yet. They don’t need to adapt the language necessarily, and the only large partnership I can think of is with Domino’s. This may not be ‘official’ and I don’t think there is a badge associated with it, but their are free pizzas and discounts available. Read more about Domino’s and Foursquare. My concern is that the people who have been using Foursquare have only been using it for the novelty of it or, like me, to keep track of where they’ve been.
Dennis Crowly, himself, summed this up pretty well in an interview with the BBC:
“You could do it for your own personal history, to say I’ve been there ten times.” And he admitted he did it himself: “I actually check in at the supermarket to compete with this guy who’s got the mayorship there.”
With other players entering the market (Facebook, Yelp, etc.), what will happen when the novelty wears off? At the start, trendy social networkers hopped on to the platform and started adding tips around London at many spots popular amongst bloggers, creatives, etc. Interest has waned, however, and I know a number of people who used to use the service, but in the absence of any real incentives, its become more of an afterthought (See comments from “Geofftech” on the BBC article above). As Groupon’s success shows, people are all about the deals.
Enter the Foursquare Ambbassador Program. A great initiative to harness the enthusiasm of its power users to develop the partnerships on the ground. Users encourage their favourite places to offer deals, which in turn drives more users to Foursquare to get these deals, and the businesses get increased business and the analytics offered by Foursquare. Everybody wins, right? Well I can only see this working with independent retailers, not your big-brand high street businesses. For that, Foursquare will need to get involved themselves and develop these partnerships at a corporate level. Also, this will have a hard time taking off in Europe until they provide support for other languages.
Foursquare still have the opportunity to forge these partnerships and corner the UK (and, indeed, European) market, but with increasing competition, they’d better act fast.
