Liberated from Foursquare
Not until I quit Foursquare yesterday, did I realize what a burden it had become to check in everywhere I went. Now I walk into a place and have nothing to do but be at that place. Liberating.
LIVE IT
Of course, I’m glad I used 4Squ so constantly for the past year. I get it, I mean I really get it. And in my field, if you want to think killer strategy for clients, you have to know how these networks work in a way you can never learn from a book or using casually. You have to live it.
MULE
But Foursquare is way too labor intensive for the regular guy and has far too little payoff for everyone. I’ve been on it a year and I’ve yet to get anything free or reduced. All I’ve done is help Foursquare build a valuable database of business locations. But no one’s sending me a check. I am a little surprised Foursquare hasn’t attempted to sweeten the pot a little bit, at least.
LIGHTER
Geo-location networking is the future, I’d bet on that, and Foursquare is going to be seen as one of the pioneers in the space. But the space is going to change dramatically. The experience must become lighter, more seamless, more valuable and intuitive to the people creating the content — the user.
NOW
Kieran, my business partner sold me on this entire argument in an under 5 minute phone call. Easy, because it makes sense, and frankly, I’m sick of checking into Foursquare.
Now I’m checking out Glympse, which locates you via GPS and lets you email/twitter/facebook your location. It has nothing to do with places, just locations. I’m not sure how they’re going to make money, but it’s a clean, transparent experience without any of the baggage (including badges, mayorships, etc) of Foursquare.
How is Foursquare treating you these days? Are you still a fan?
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Congratulations, Michelle!
I think you made a brilliant decision!
One thing that is clear about you is that you are truly dedicated to learning about social media platforms and applications as an insider/user to permit you to give the very best insights and advice to your clients.
Kay, you say the nicest thing, really. xoxo
Haha, I just started doing checkins because as a 'burb dweller for the past year, couldn't really see the use of Foursquare. I still see no other use to it other than that it seems to be a good channel to be active in for someone in our line of work, and it takes me 20 seconds to do a check in. I could just do check ins on Yelp, where I review, but I want to 'touch' as many of these channels as I can to be involved and try to learn from them what they are doing. Have you triedhttp://gowalla.com? Seems like it's basically a clone of 4sq
Yeah, I downloaded Gowalla and used for a day or two and then realized it was way too labor intensive to keep up both Gowalla and 4sq — especially considering I have pretty much given up both for precisely the same reason. I hear Gowalla is even less flexible about how you add data, making it more of a task.