{"id":2229,"date":"2012-01-07T08:04:45","date_gmt":"2012-01-07T13:04:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/?p=2229"},"modified":"2012-01-07T08:04:45","modified_gmt":"2012-01-07T13:04:45","slug":"growing-out-of-foursquare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2012\/01\/07\/growing-out-of-foursquare","title":{"rendered":"Growing out of Foursquare"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It seems like after two years of using Foursquare, I&#8217;ve reached check-in fatigue. I&#8217;ve written my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2011\/02\/01\/thoughts-on-foursquare\">thoughts<\/a> before after a year of usage. <\/p>\n<p>Today I don&#8217;t turn the app on. I visit places but I can&#8217;t be bothered about checking in. If I&#8217;m visiting a new place, I might fire up the app to check on reviews. And I will continue using it for the Topguest integration. Beyond that, I can&#8217;t imagine why I&#8217;d be firing it up. <\/p>\n<p>Some reasons to my lack of continued interest in Foursquare:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>if I wanted to meet you, we&#8217;d be meeting. Coming to &#8220;catch&#8221; me at a place is not useful for me. I fixed this by checking into locations after I&#8217;d left.<\/li>\n<li>many duplicate venues. Tips spread across all of them. No way to clean it up. <\/li>\n<li>tips becoming increasingly less useful. People aren&#8217;t using it, ads are coming in, etc. frankly I&#8217;d like some way to not just see what my friends recommend, but friends whom have good taste\/tastes similar to mine<\/li>\n<li>hardly many establishments even care to offer check-in rewards, mayor discounts, etc. in fact the establishments in Malaysia\/Singapore are easily countable. This I attribute to the company being disinterested in penetrating the market &#8211; I hope google places and Facebook check-ins become more useful as they both have local offices<\/li>\n<li>after a while, the gamification, badges, etc just get boring<\/li>\n<li>frequent roaming means I don&#8217;t frequently have a data connection enabled, which has helped me deplete my usage of Foursquare<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In short, I don&#8217;t see the value from the application. I know that when I&#8217;m in San Francisco I can see value. Budapest surprised me with value again. But generally, it seems like value is tough to come by. <\/p>\n<p>From a merchant standpoint, I&#8217;d like more control. If I know people frequent an area, I&#8217;d like to tell them about my establishment. <\/p>\n<p>I do find the Explore function quite useful when I&#8217;m in a new city or I&#8217;m just looking for something to do. Sometimes I use it to gauge the parking situation at certain malls (a 10km radius from where I live covers some rather popular places :P). But it could be more useful again. Let&#8217;s say I want to search for the term &#8220;pork satay&#8221; in a 10km radius. Some people spell things like &#8220;sate&#8221;. Sometimes there&#8217;s no tips. Shops don&#8217;t normally label themselves after a food even though that might be their main pull. <\/p>\n<p>Addresses are generally incomplete. Map locations can be wayward. Phone numbers and opening hours are non-existent. <\/p>\n<p>The problem for me is largely dirty data. Foursquare would be a lot more useful if it were edited. And provided to me information, rather than data. <\/p>\n<p>The idea is that dirty data gets fixed via crowd-sourcing. Get your users to do the work for you! Have you seen the lengthy application process to become a Superuser Level 2? Compare that to how easy it is to edit Wikipedia. <\/p>\n<p>There used to be a movement to clean up Foursquare locations in KL. Eventually though, I think the users moved on, found busier jobs, and life took over. Crowd sourcing works; barriers matter. <\/p>\n<p>Facebook and Google are at their primes here. They can win by providing information, rather than data. User generated comments are always useful, but building further filters with a wider network probably helps. Besides, I bet there are more connections on Facebook and more loose connections on twitter and google plus, in comparison to Foursquare for most. Google is already pushing getting merchants online, why not make them also focus on Places?<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, Foursquare is still on my phone. It&#8217;s usage is just severely reduced.<\/p>\n<div id=\"geo-post-2229\" class=\"geo geo-post\" style=\"display: none\"><span class=\"latitude\">3.117509<\/span><span class=\"longitude\">101.676963<\/span><\/div><div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-email\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-email sd-button share-icon\" href=\"mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Growing%20out%20of%20Foursquare&body=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bytebot.net%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2012%2F01%2F07%2Fgrowing-out-of-foursquare&share=email\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to email a link to a friend\" data-email-share-error-title=\"Do you have email set up?\" data-email-share-error-text=\"If you&#039;re having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. 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I&#8217;ve written my thoughts before after a year of usage. Today I don&#8217;t turn the app on. I visit places but I can&#8217;t be bothered about checking in. If I&#8217;m visiting a new place, I might fire up the app to check [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-email\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-email sd-button share-icon\" href=\"mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Growing%20out%20of%20Foursquare&body=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bytebot.net%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2012%2F01%2F07%2Fgrowing-out-of-foursquare&share=email\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to email a link to a friend\" data-email-share-error-title=\"Do you have email set up?\" data-email-share-error-text=\"If you&#039;re having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. You may need to create a new email yourself.\" data-email-share-nonce=\"ce617db434\" data-email-share-track-url=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2012\/01\/07\/growing-out-of-foursquare?share=email\"><span>Email<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-facebook\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-facebook-2229\" class=\"share-facebook sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2012\/01\/07\/growing-out-of-foursquare?share=facebook\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Facebook\" ><span>Facebook<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-linkedin\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-linkedin-2229\" class=\"share-linkedin sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2012\/01\/07\/growing-out-of-foursquare?share=linkedin\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on LinkedIn\" ><span>LinkedIn<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-twitter\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-twitter-2229\" class=\"share-twitter sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2012\/01\/07\/growing-out-of-foursquare?share=twitter\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Twitter\" ><span>Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-end\"><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[1],"tags":[1082],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4vJD-zX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2102,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2011\/02\/01\/thoughts-on-foursquare","url_meta":{"origin":2229,"position":0},"title":"Thoughts on Foursquare","date":"1\/2\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I have now been a Foursquare user for over a year, basically since they opened it up for international users earlier last year. Here are some quick thoughts on the service. To the uninitiated, Foursquare is a location based service that allows you to \"check-in\" to a place, so your\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1683,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2010\/02\/22\/restaurants-need-to-manage-their-online-reputations","url_meta":{"origin":2229,"position":1},"title":"Restaurants need to manage their online reputations","date":"22\/2\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Bloggers are an opinionated lot. They tend to speak the truth (most of the time - let's ignore undisclosed advertorials). You have a bad experience at an establishment, you have a blog, you're bound to pen down your thoughts. Its only natural. You're trying to help the general public that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1699,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2010\/02\/24\/twitter-needs-filters","url_meta":{"origin":2229,"position":2},"title":"Twitter needs filters","date":"24\/2\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I don't know if @ev, @biz or @dickc will read this, but Twitter clearly needs filters. Its not something an external client should do (TweetDeck does this very well, BTW), but the main stream should provide. The way I look at my Twitter feed, is like email. Twitter currently speaks\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2963,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2014\/08\/30\/what-eventually-happens-with-apps","url_meta":{"origin":2229,"position":3},"title":"What eventually happens with apps","date":"30\/8\/2014","format":false,"excerpt":"There has been a lot of talk about apps generally not doing well. There may be truth in the matter. Let's take my mother, a classic example of someone who plays Candy Crush (made by King, whom are now public listed in London). She plays this mainly on her iPad,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Business&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2909,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2014\/04\/22\/apps-should-be-conduits-for-web-services","url_meta":{"origin":2229,"position":4},"title":"Apps should be conduits for web services","date":"22\/4\/2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Beautiful designed apps should be conduits for web services. Or provide some form of \u201cdesktop\u201d capability. Sync is important. Brent Simmons recently wrote of Marco Arment:\u00a0 You know him from Tumblr, Instapaper, The Magazine, and (coming soon) Overcast. You may think of Marco as an iOS developer \u2013 but every\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2104,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2011\/02\/06\/thoughts-on-group-buying-sites","url_meta":{"origin":2229,"position":5},"title":"Thoughts on group buying sites","date":"6\/2\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Congratulations to Khailee for getting GroupsMore sold to Groupon (in a record five months since its inception!). He tells me they're now Groupon Malaysia and Joel (his partner, co-founder of YouthSays) is going to be CEO of Groupon Malaysia. A lot of people instantly said that since Groupon is now\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2229"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2229"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2230,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2229\/revisions\/2230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}